


The Blood of Romania [part one]

by StagsInSilence, whiskeyandspite



Series: The Blood of Romania [1]
Category: Adam (2009), Charlie Countryman (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst, Blood Kink, Blood and Violence, Crossdressing, Human/Vampire Relationship, M/M, Master/Slave, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Vampire Hunters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:27:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 76,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23797669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StagsInSilence/pseuds/StagsInSilence, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: Nigel was once an esteemed demon hunter, facing off against the creatures of the night with ease and pleasure. But there came a vampire he couldn't slay, and now he is paying the price.
Relationships: Nigel (Charlie Countryman)/Adam Raki
Series: The Blood of Romania [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1863430
Comments: 32
Kudos: 49





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> While I’m the one posting it, all chapters were co-written by myself (Stags) and Whiskey. Began writing this AU mid 2019 - hope you like it!

Nigel Ioveanu swore as he shook his head in disgust. He had made a mess of things this time. It was only a small nest, barely large enough to be considered a _family_ let alone a threat, but it had been a long time since Nigel had found it in him to fight against his orders. Even longer since he had dared to question orders given out of boredom. He shuddered at the thought and wiped his offal- and blood-soaked hands against the once fine coat he had worn, the dark material keeping him out of sight as he moved through the shadows. He'd have to get rid of it now. Such a fucking waste.

" _Dracului vampiri,"_ he cursed again. Despite it all, he really was getting fucking sick of the gods damned vampires. Especially the ones that called for him to be making such a mess.

Absently scratching at the constantly scabbed holes in the side of his neck, Nigel ran through all the different ways Adam could - and _would_ \- scold him for arriving back in such a state. Coated in the remains of his enemies, their scent on his skin as well as his clothes.

 _Shit,_ he thought. _Adam won't be happy about this at all._

Adam liked things clean. He liked things aesthetically pleasing, and his tastes ranged from Renaissance elegance to late 1700s foppery. It all depended on his mood. He was old enough, as he'd said many times, to decide what he enjoyed and strong enough not to be questioned about it. 

He still let his pet question him, on occasion, simply to see him squirm a little he muttered his displeasure at the commands. He never let the questions sway him. Adam had long ago learned that one must be confident in his decisions, and eager to face the consequences of those decisions. 

Life wasn't too short for him, after all.

It was _because_ life wasn't short for Adam - but very much _could be_ for Nigel - that the mortal took his time crossing town. Twilight was passing quickly and gave him more freedom to move about as the darker the hour, the less visible his state was. Tonight was one of those nights where he wouldn't be surprised if he was stopped by the constabulary for drawing attention to himself, but Nigel was also smarter than that. And Nigel had become something of a master of control himself.

He'd learned just how to walk in a way that made people move out of his way without even knowing that they were doing such. He walked with pride, with determination, but with his chin down to avoid eye contact or any other band interactions with his fellow humans. Even if one could hardly consider them on the same page as Nigel. His heart may beat, his lungs may breathe, but it had been what felt like a millennium since he had actually been something _human_.

A church bell chimed and Nigel let out a sigh, drawing his coat tighter around him as he quickened his pace. He longed for something as simple as a single drink in a passing tavern, but every time he strayed his path he felt that tug inside him that kept his feet on track. He hated that twice-damned tug. That _thrice-damned_ Adam. 

But still, he relented to it and found there was no need to draw things out any more than needed. "Home" was just around the bend and his master would be rising soon.

"Home" was an ostentatious three-story property, with a large front garden overgrown with roses and an even larger back garden hidden from view by tall, stone walls.

In truth, the house was four stories, if you counted the basement.

Nigel didn't know how old it was and he didn't care. He'd wondered if it had belonged to someone before Adam had settled there - without taking no for an answer - but the reality of the situation could have been that he'd inherited it seven generations ago and had simply chosen to stay in it. It had stayed in surprisingly good repair, considering most of the inhabitants never left the property in daylight.

It housed most of the coven in the basement, many still too young to risk nesting above ground where the sun could reach them. Seventeen in total, boys and men ranging in age from far-too-young to looking-far-too-good-for-fifty. Nigel had no idea if Adam had sired all of them, or had just let stragglers join if they were handsome enough. Either was plausible.

Adam, of course, lived exclusively on the third floor, where the windows had been carefully designed to block out all sunlight throughout the day, and opened wide at night. He rarely mingled with his coven anymore; they bored him. He'd survived through enough existential crises to no longer find others interesting. He rarely received guests, unless they had been exclusively chosen and deliberately invited.

Or were Nigel.

Nigel climbed the stairs without seeing anyone but he could hear the quiet chatter coming from the parlour when he entered the house. For the better. While the coven had learned their place when it came to touching what belonged to Adam, a few still tried their hand at claiming Nigel for themselves. It never ended well and Nigel was far from in the mood to play games with sad saps.

He reached the top of the plush stairs, quickly checking to see if his shoes had marred the runner. He exhaled in relief before standing in front of Adam's door. He should open it. Let himself in as had become something of the norm - a little act of defiance he had managed to get away with - but tonight he hesitated. Waited for a sign to enter. He didn't like that at all.

He waited long enough that he was damn near close to shoving the double doors open before he heard the familiar susurrus of feet against rugs. Beyond the door, a sigh, a groan, a hum of resignation - in that order - and the handle turned.

"You're giving me a headache from all the way out here," Adam muttered, fingers pressing to the bridge of his nose as he dramatically leaned against the door jamb. "You _reek,_ Nigel. Whatever - or, I suppose, whomever - are you covered in?"

Adam was the epitome of what the Greeks worshipped, thin, agile, pale, and beautiful. He didn't even warrant the category of _handsome_ , he was too pretty for that. Tonight he wore one of his favourite silk dressing gowns, made in a Japanese style, with a thick belt to go with it when it was properly worn and done up correctly.

Right now, it wasn't.

Nigel stiffened at the sight of Adam, attacked by his own conflicted feelings of dislike and attraction. And even then the layers of dislike came from every direction. He stamped it all down as best he could, giving Adam as sharp a snarl as he dared. "Who do you think? You're the one who sent me across town."

He slipped past Adam, careful not to touch him with his dirty coat sleeves, and into the room. Nigel took his coat off as he marched over to the suite's dining table, tossing the ruined fabric on the wood in frustration.

"It got messy."

"And now you're spreading the mess around, how kind of you." Adam closed the door with a push of his fingers, strength evident only in the sound the door made when it shut.

He sauntered after Nigel, arms crossing over his bare chest as he watched him work free the dirty cuffs of his shirt next. He let his eyes slip over the form of the man, beautifully built, strong, _frustratingly_ delicious in every possible way.

"I _did_ tell you _not_ to make a mess, didn't I? Now what am I supposed to do when this inevitably drags itself to my door?"

"I didn't leave a trail. The clothes can be burned to get rid of the damn smell if it bothers you so much."

Nigel moved on to the buttons of his shirt, taking note of his dirty hands as he did so and almost hoping that Adam would demand he cleaned himself up before anything moved further. Even Nigel had his limits when it came to filth.

He risked pushing his luck again as the shirt joined the coat on the table. "Besides, messes are not always avoidable. Besides, the whole next was only five or six large. I don't see why you wanted to bother with them at all."

"Did you _see_ them?" Adam muttered. He didn't feel the need to give Nigel his full reasoning, he wasn't awake yet. And Nigel was slowly stripping free of gore-covered clothes and revealing the skin beneath and-

"Bath," Adam said, coming back to himself. "Immediately. Even I can't bear to think of tasting you, and I can't have that."

He'd get one of the boys to remove the clothes, find Nigel new ones. Something fitted and fancy, but dark enough to keep him inconspicuous when he inevitably ventured out again. Pity. He'd like that coat on him.

Nigel rolled his eyes but kept his mouth shut. Silently thankful for the command, he stalked deeper into the third floor to the private bathing room. The ancient quality of the house hid away the most modern of updates, including the very recently installed water heater.

The water grew to scalding quickly but Nigel didn't care as he scrubbed away the gore. Hunting vampires was once something he did for himself. He and his own mismatched family were posed purifiers making more of a coven's hidden treasures than the secret bounty on the monsters themselves. In a normal situation, this would be a normal occurrence, but he'd been taken from that life. Things had long since changed. 

Nigel felt that sense of being trapped, of a dark depressive cloud, drift over him that had surrounded him during the early days of being kept in this house. HE allowed himself to slip below the water and let the air out of his lungs in a slow stream of bubbles. Maybe he could let himself drown and be free of this existence that was not quite hell, but certainly wasn't a life of highest quality. Even if he considered the perks he had earned for himself.

His chest neared a screaming point for air, and Nigel let himself breach the surface of the water. He guessed it could be worse.

Adam hadn't followed him into the bathing room, which was as welcome as it was suspicious. Adam had made it very clear from the off that Nigel lived only because Adam had a whim to keep him that way, and that things could change in the span of a single bit if need be. He thus held no concept of personal space, when it came to Nigel in particular.

From the other room, came a soft humming, a tune that was at once familiar and entirely not. It would be eerie if the timbre wasn't so low, the voice not so familiar. There had been quiet conversation before, suggesting someone had come in. Now, there was just the tune.

Nigel tentatively sought the marks against his neck and frowned, before ducking below the surface again, as though that would remove them; remove the memories associated with them.

At least there were only two, now, at the height of their previous arrangement, Nigel had counted at least a dozen.

Pulling himself from his reverie, Nigel got out of the tub, towelling off only enough to not be dripping all over the floor, and returned to the main seating area of the flat.

At this point, Nigel had very little shame in presenting himself to Adam in such a vulnerable state but he very much enjoyed the flicker of human desire in Adam's eyes when he did. Arms crossed over his broad chest, he asked the simple question, "Satisfied?"

Adam's eyes flicked up to gaze at him over his book. He made a sound, a pleased, purring thing.

"A start towards satisfaction, certainly." He closed the book, set it aside, and unfolded himself from the chair he'd curled in, walking closer to stand right in front of Nigel. He was shorter, perhaps half a foot, but his presence was enough to make up for it. He didn't hesitate in reaching out to run the tip his fingers down the center of Nigel's chest, forcing him to uncross his arms. He stopped at the navel, before curling his hand and running his knuckles back up again, chasing the goosebumps before them.

"What a lovely thing you are," Adam muttered. "If somewhat disobedient."

"I haven't the slightest idea what you mean," Nigel said back, just as quietly. "I've done everything you have commanded."

It was the truth. Nigel couldn't see himself being punished too harshly for the truth. But there was part of him that wanted it to. So much was coming to the surface tonight from his past that he had not thought about since being brought to the house. He didn't want to think about it now either.

Adam looked up at him through long lashes and Nigel found himself admiring his beauty. Skin like marble and porcelain at the same time, eyes deeper than sapphires, and those curls looked plusher to the touch than the most elegant of mink coats.

"What reason would I have to be disobedient?"

Adam smiled, eyes narrowed, head tilting just so. It was hypnotic, alluring in a way that was entirely involuntary. He didn't take his hands off Nigel, instead splaying cool fingers against his chest.

"It's the humanity in you," he said. "That whole 'free will' _thing_. I find you absolutely fascinating."

Adam pushed up on his toes, leaned closer, close enough to feel Nigel's heat against his lips before sighing and tilting his head back, revealing the pale expanse of his throat.

"Eat," he said. "Bogdan brought up a feast. Can't have you collapsing, can we?" He grinned, stepping back slightly. "He brought clothes, too, but there's no pressing need for you to wear them."

Nigel couldn't help but lean into the slowly receding touch, loving how cool Adam's hand was against the warmth of his skin. He revealed his throat, and Nigel bit down on his tongue to fight against the sound wanting to escape his throat. Adam had begun to toy with Nigel like this more and more, seductive and tantalizing. He knew how to throw his beauty in Nigel's face and was doing so more and more.

Nigel looked Adam dead in the eyes for a moment before his stomach growled and he had to admit he was hungry. He took the hint that he wasn't to dress and sat at the table. Food fit for the King was spread out on the table and Nigel shamelessly tucked in.

Adam sat across from him, drawing a knee up to rest his cheek against as he watched Nigel eat. Humanness never stopped fascinating Adam. It had been so long since he himself had brought a forkful of food to his lips and savoured the flavours upon it. He couldn't remember the taste of anything, but it hardly mattered. Watching Nigel enjoy his meal, watching the way he selected what he wanted, ate with abandon, combined one flavour with another... 

Adam couldn't help but draw his tongue against his teeth beneath his lips. Oh, he was _lovely_.

He'd had pets before, hundreds of them throughout the decades, but few like Nigel. Too many had immediately succumbed to him, fawning over his beauty, pledging to give their entire existence to worshiping his every movement. Some had fought, which was entirely welcome, but hadn't stopped fighting. Others still begged to be turned, to be _made as you are_. He'd turned them. He'd regretted it.

But Nigel was a wonder. Proud and strong, his desire for Adam clear but his restraint admirable. He'd fought but knew when to cede, his life important to him; clinging to every aspect that made it his own.

Nigel did his best to ignore how small and innocent Adam looked tucked in the chair. He did his best to fill his stomach without risk of making himself sick. He was usually nauseous after being fed upon but there had been times where his knees had given out, where he'd sunk to the floor and been sick near to death at the feeling of being drained. Again he shuddered involuntarily at the thought, the memories, and he wished he could be under the water in the tub again.

Nigel used to be more than this. Strong, fast, unafraid of broken rules or threats of punishment. There hadn't been any rules to break. He was a skilled hunter who was not kept like a jungle cat, allowed only to stretch as much as his ties permitted. Always reminded of what he was capable of but never allowed to truly perform. His current arrangement was close to Nigel's usual life, but was still nothing more than the cheap imitation of freedom.

That was the thing with vampires. Even they weren't truly free, and that meant no one under their command could be either.

"Problem?" Nigel said between mouthfuls. Adam's expression had grown wistful. He didn't like that.

Adam watched him a moment more before setting both feet to the floor and pulling his body into a full-bodied stretch, complete with sounds far too sweet for something so simple.

"You make me nostalgic," Adam replied, pushing to stand. He wanted nothing more than to straddle Nigel and feed on him, drawing out the pleasure for them both before finally letting him rest.

But in truth, Adam wasn't that hungry. Not for blood, anyway.

"What would you be doing with your night if you weren't here?" He asked. "Tavern? Inn? Surrounded by warm bodies in various states of inebriation?" 

Nigel's brow furrowed. This was new. Adam often said Nigel made him nostalgic, even when he was only there for the purpose of being fed on. Despite the luxuries of good food and better clothes, Nigel was rarely ever considered to be a person who may have interests. Only a source of sustenance with skills of occasional use.

"Tavern," he said, putting down the gilded cutlery - gold not silver - and leaning back in the cushioned chair. "I'm sure there would be a maid or two looking for companionship. Maybe even for less than the cost of a drink."

"I'm glad that hasn't changed," Adam grinned. He imagined Nigel in his element, away from this, for just a moment. He was a handsome man, rough, rugged, scarred and unafraid to gain more. He probably had a whole host of broken hearts in his wake. "And what would you do, with a maid or two?" he pressed on, leaning his hip against the table and letting the sleeves of his robe whisper down his arms as he crossed them. Adam himself had had so little time to explore as a human being. As one of the Damned? Well. The perks of a body that healed itself and returned to its original beauty after rest had made his experiences far more exciting than a mortal's could often be.

"Depends on it that is a question of curiosity or jealousy," Nigel dared with a quirked eyebrow.

This game of chess could be fatal, but it was part of why Nigel was rarely bored himself. Pushing limits gave him something to do with his time when it wasn't occupied by Adam's whims.

"For curiosity's sake," he continued, "there are few things I wouldn't do. For jealousy's, even fewer."

Adam wondered if he even remembered the sensation of blushed; the rush of blood to his cheeks, his lips, the brightening of his eyes... He could mimic the outward appearance of it now, but it was the same as putting on a mask - he _felt_ nothing of it.

"I suppose you'd taste?" Adam coaxed. "Tongue drawn slow and spread wide to get every last element against it. The heat of them slightly different to your own, slightly warmer even. Skin silken against the roughness of your cheeks - I assume you'd keep the fashion of the day." Adam gestured to Nigel's face, stepping closer and bringing two fingers up against his lips. "Savouring the sounds, and sensations, and smells, and tastes of them around you."

Nigel wished those fingers were against his own lips. Then he might not feel so ashamed of the stiffening of his free cock beneath the table. He forced himself to recall the horrors he had committed in an attempt to ease the spark in his blood.

"I do have a habit of making women unable to keep their mouths shut," he said, forcing a hint of pride into his words. This was meant to be a taunt, but he found himself very much wanting to do other things. "And as the farm folk might say, 'More hands make less work'."

It was _work_ for Nigel to keep still in his chair. To keep from flinging himself at his master and ravishing him the way something so pretty deserved to be ravished. Nigel had never been a religious man, but he was certainly under some devil's spell to put such sinful thirsts in his head.

There it was, that spicy hint of arousal Adam caught wafting from Nigel like perfume. Adam could damn near bathe in it. He hummed, pleased, warm, and stepped closer. He could do a lot of things. Call Nigel's bluff, tease him about the pleasure this brought him then leave him bereft. He could take it upon himself to bring this budding pleasure to completion. He could enjoy the moment, savour the taste of it, and leave Nigel to his rest.

The temptation nearly made Adam ache.

He wanted him, and would have him, one day. When Nigel reached out first. Until then...

"I bet they curse your name as much as they praise it, those women," he said. "Writhing for more of you. Closer, hotter, _deeper_... And you would answer their begging, wouldn't you? Lovely thing that you are. Fulfilling your desires and theirs, all at once."

Adam had come to Nigel's chair now, running cold fingers over the armrest, the arm against it. Up to Nigel's shoulder, over his collarbone and over to the other, passing behind Nigel as he did so. He nuzzled his claim against Nigel's skin, enjoying the view down his the man's body as he did so, and wished it had been him to bring Nigel to this, rather than the images he conjured.

Nigel bit his tongue again, using up all of his strength to hold in the sigh that wanted to be let out as Adam's fingers trailed over his bare skin. He was certain Adam could hear, as well as he could _feel_ , the quickening of Nigel's pulse beneath the warmth rising from his skin. Instead, he changed his own verbal sparring tactics.

"You seem to be taking your time tonight, Adam." The sentence was like silk but he kept his tone clipped when it came to his master's name. He had had enough of the tension and wasn't sure how much longer he could hold on before he snapped. Maybe if he listened he would be permitted a night in the tavern.

He almost shook his head. _What_ _a stupid thought_.

"I'm not particularly hungry," Adam admitted, the smile clear in his voice. He nipped, just lightly, against marks his teeth had left and breathed in the smell of blood. He could feed, he supposed, it wouldn't do him _harm_ , and there was something so lovely about Nigel being almost open to the idea.

That was rare.

So he tasted. Just enough to get the cloying warmth of arousal on his own tongue, just enough to feel Nigel's muscles tense before they relaxed in his own pleasure, just enough - 

Nigel's throat had tightened, hitching his breath as he felt Adam reopen the wounds in his neck, felt that surge of pain and pleasure mixed into one. He could feel his mind start to wander backwards, feeling more than one set of fangs on him when-

The door had opened and Nigel felt embarrassment washed over him. Adam smiled against the skin of his neck and Nigel knew that he could taste the change. With that hand like chilled marble on his shoulder, holding him in pace, Nigel was forced to wallow, cheeks flushed.

"There's a carriage outside."

Bogdan had returned, quiet as a mouse, and stood impassively watching the scene at the table. Adam didn't stop, instead setting a hand to Nigel's skin to keep him still a moment longer. He could savour the tang of humiliation, too. To be naked before Adam's valet, that was something Nigel was not at all pleased with.

When Adam finally pulled away, he eyed the young man at the door.

"Fine. Go. I'll handle it." He kept his eyes on Bogdan until he left, and only then did he let Nigel move as he wanted. "Rude. But necessity calls. Shall I give you your evening then?"

The hand on his skin was lifted and Nigel didn't look at Adam, instead glaring off to the side as he offered a curt nod. Taking his chance, Nigel rose and fled with his tail between his cowardly legs to his own small quarters in the flat. He wiped the small domes of blood from his skin, more smearing it than actually clearing it away, with a trembling hand. He should have been used to this by now. Their current arrangement had formed less than half a year ago but prior to that Nigel had spent - at his last estimation - nearly two years enslaved to this place. Potentially longer. He'd be so constantly used up that it was hard to even be aware of time as a concept.

He lay down on his bed. The most comfortable piece of work he had ever had the pleasure of lying on. And he thought of Gabriella Ibanescu. She was a musician, a tactician, and a deadly fighter all wrapped into one god-sent package from the heavens. He had loved her more than life itself. He hoped she loved him back to such an extent as he loved her.

He found himself wondering if she held out any hope that he was alive and his chest ached. Sitting up, Nigel pondered Adam's words of leaving him "to his evening" and if it meant he could get out. Maybe he could search for Gabi if Adam was occupied elsewhere. Maybe he could escape entirely. 

He could. Or, at least, he could try. The siren call that connects him to Adam would always call him back. He'd known people to resist it, but it had taken its toll on them, leaving them bereft, as phantoms in the world, even without the Damned controlling them.

Back in the dining area, Adam let Nigel move off on his own, taking a moment to savour the last of his taste against his lips. He'd drawn his fingers over them, feeling the residual warmth of him, before sighing and slipping his robe from his shoulders.

Adam made a point to dress eccentrically. Far from offensive, he wanted to draw the eye, to be _seen_ and remembered. He had forsaken the clothing of the country and had instead sent for coats and shirts and boots from England. And so he dressed, now, in buckskin breeches below the knee, a shirt that frothed pleasantly at Adam's throat, and a clawhammer coat atop. He considered foregoing a cravat, but couldn't quite bring himself to sell himself so short. He stepping into his riding boots and drew both hands through his hair with a sigh.

He didn't want to go out. He would much rather spend his night reading, absently curling his fingers in Nigel's hair when the man was sleeping deeply enough not to wake. But alas, a mess had been made - by his orders, he would admit - and now he had to clean it up.

He didn't take his cane, or a hat, and didn't bother to say goodbye to Nigel as he left the flat, decisively closing the doors behind him. 

He left orders, as he always did, for the top floor to be avoided. He left orders, as he always did, for Nigel to be left in peace should he venture through the house at his leisure. He left orders and reminded those listening that they should be followed or _else_ , and stepped from the house with little more than a glance at his coven. 

Upstairs, Nigel found himself almost wishing Adam would have taken him along. It was a concerning feeling. Why was it that he was growing attached? Sentimental? _Concerned_? A vampire was the _last_ fucking thing he needed to care for. So why did he?

He thought of Gabi again and he rolled to lay on his back. And of Darko. If his best friend could only see him now... Nigel breathed a sad laugh through his nose at the thought. Darko would put him well out of his misery if he couldn't find a way to break the bond with Adam.


	2. Chapter 2

Nigel had woken to an empty bed, the sun shining in his eyes through a crack in the heavy curtains. The intensity of the light suggested it was well past noon, the sound of scales drifting through the air suggested almost evening. Dragging his bruise covered body out of bed, Nigel made his way down the steep stairs of the row house, following the velvety sounds of a cello. The instrument made Nigel laugh. It had been claimed from a vampire nest many years ago and Gabriella had taken to it almost instantly, threatening to stab anyone who criticized her for such an unseemly choice of instrument.

 _That's my darling, Gabriella_ , Nigel thought, finding himself humming along with the tune that had taken over from the warm-up scales.

"He walks among us," she said as he came to the doorway fo the tiny parlour, not stopping her song or looking up at her partner. "Darko was concerned you were to become one of the Damned."

"Darko only wishes," Nigel grinned.

"He'd remain just as single if you had," she remarked, fingers quick on the strings, her bow hand slow in contrast. It was a waltz of some kind that she was playing, something that had come to her in the middle of the night and didn't yet have notation to go with it. That could come later.

"He's out," she added. "Provisions."

Nigel made a small growl and moved into the room, stooping to kiss Gabi's cheek as he did so. She smelled of honey and cinnamon and Nigel teasingly licked at her skin before he stood up again.

"So that leaves us some time then," he grinned.

Gabi set down her bow and gave Nigel and unimpressed look. "It's nearly half two, Nigel. You expect to have your way with me and sleep the rest of the day while Darko and I do all the work?"

Nigel had the nerve to look taken aback, "I don't just fall asleep afterwards, Gabi."

Gabi blinked and raised an eyebrow, settling back into her seat and resting the cello against her thighs. 

"Like you didn't five hours ago?"

"Enough of you," Nigel said, making to stalk out of the room but changing his mind to double back and kiss Gabi properly. "You love me," he said against her lips.

"If I didn't, you'd be half-dead in a gutter somewhere," she responded back.

"And you would still be in your father's house. Alone. Cello-less. Such a waste of an angel."

Gabi clicked her tongue and smiled at him. She didn't tell him that she would have gotten a cello anyway; it isn't worth the tension.

"This one is across town," she said instead, switching to work mode. "You remember. Small coven, young, not hugely dangerous but-"

Nigel's brow furrowed. "Across town..." Oh. That one. "I don't understand why you insisted on taking so long to get after them. They're a nuisance to the neighbourhood over there. The people in that quarter have enough troubles as it is without being eaten alive in the streets."

Gabi sighed, "Because, Nigel, small covens have to come from somewhere. Connections we can't even begin to understand ten to be at play and I would much rather not have you and Darko lead an army back here on a revenge plot if it can be avoided."

Nigel groaned but didn't argue. The last thing they needed was the fucking Damned chasing them down night after night because of a miscalculation. 

"And this is why we have you," Nigel told her. Gabi raised an elegant brow again. 

"And because unlike the pair of you, I can shoot with both hands. Someone has to cover you both when you spend so much time reloading. Leave it to men to prove your manliness by shooting more often than you aim."

She stood, straightening her skirt before moving towards Nigel and playfully shoving her shoulder against his.

Nigel smiled, wrapping his arms around her to pull her into his chest. He kissed along her neck and murmured how seductive she was with a gun in her hand.

"Jesus and Mary, Nigel, control yourself."

Nigel looked up but didn't let go of Gabi. "Welcome back, Darko. I hope you brought us something to eat."

Gabriella wiggled her way free to help Darko with the packages he carried in. "I would think the ammunition he's carrying would be more important."

Darko smiled his thanks. "Gabi is right, you lazy bastard. Now give me a hand."

"I'm telling you," Nigel said, following along, feigning reluctance. "We need to start hitting up mansions for their silver spoons. Melting our own bullets would be _much_ more cost-effective."

"This is literally why you never go for provisions," Darko told him. "No one in their right mind would _sell_ silver bullets in the open."

"Half the country believes in vampires, the other half does everything in their power to pretend they don't," added Gabi as Nigel lazily held up a rude gesture to both of them.

"So what's the plan then, since the two of you are so fucking clever? Ambush? Stalk?"

"Ambush."

"Stalk."

Both Gabi and Darko spoke at the same time before crossing their arms to raise eyebrows at each other. The sight made Nigel laugh. They looked like spoiled siblings being told to work together.

"Something amusing, Nigel?" Darko snarled.

"Always," Nigel smiled back. "Substantiate your choice."

"Stalking could lead to separating them," Gabi sighed. "Cleaner deaths means less work as well as fewer complications later. We do _not_ want anyone knocking on our door when we are finished."

" _But_ ," Darko countered, "an ambush gets the job done quick. Dragging things out would mean risking witnesses. Whether the people believe or not, I can't see many being okay with murders in the open streets."

"They don't complain when the murder of their own stops once we're done," Gabi shot back. Neither would back down. This could last the entire day if they weren't careful. If they hadn't been considering this place for a while, Nigel would have just called the thing off for another day.

"I could toss a coin?"

"Are we at that stage already?"

"I'm not risking playing favourites by choosing a side," Nigel laughed. "We're prepared, we have equipment, we're fucking ready. I don't care how we do it, just that we do."

"Flip a goddamn coin then," Gabi said, sauntering up to Nigel. "Just remember where you're sleeping tonight."

Nigel smirked at her, a feral glint in his eye.

" _And_ who will be making _both_ of your dinners."

Nigel and Darko both watched as Gabi moved across the hall to their little kitchen.

"Well?" Darko asked.

"Eat first. Decide later."

Darko rolled his eyes. "If only you would think with the brain in your skull."

"What would be the fun in that?"

Darko had to agree, a shrug, a gesture, a huff of a laugh. Without Nigel being Nigel, it would have just stayed the two of them, idiot kids trying to get their kicks invading vampire nests. They wouldn't have found Gabi. They certainly wouldn't have managed to hone their operation to what it was today.

He grabbed up a towel and tossed it at Nigel.

"You're on dishes then, asshole."


	3. Chapter 3

Nigel rolled over to stare absently at the heavy curtains, letting his vision blue with the pattern. He missed Gabi. He missed that idiot, Darko. Hell, he missed _doing dishes_ and would happily volunteer to do them for the rest of his cursed life if it meant he could be with them again.

His quality of life may have drastically improved, but in a way, this return to coherence only made things harder.

Loneliness was killer. Even the fucking _Damned_ knew it, all huddling together in covens, building communities with individuals they sometimes couldn't stand on their own. Just for companionship.

With a sigh, Nigel let his eyes close, still wary of the sounds of the house as he let himself slowly relax into the bed.

Adam arrived home as red fingers began clawing at the sky, pulling dawn to the world. He didn't hurry, a part of him always tempted to taunt fate by standing so close to something that could kill him.

In theory.

Most of the coven was already settled for the day when he arrived. With no more than a passing glance to those he saw, Adam made his way upstairs. There was no tension, no anger, no anticipation in the air; the night had been quiet, as he'd wanted it to be. At home, anyway.

He'd spent his time in terse parlay with another leader, a coven beyond even the borders of Adam's territory, because of Nigel's little project. Adam's. It didn't matter, it had been a mess. He should have expected the swift action given that allegiances had been fractured and people wanted answers or heads to roll. Funny how no one wanted to volunteer their own.

Adam didn't bother to be quiet as he entered his rooms, dropping his clothes where they fell as he undressed. Nigel would wake or he wouldn't, it hardly mattered. Regardless of his mood, Adam _would_ feed the next night, if for no other reason than to feel his skin warm with some kind of life.

Nigel was weary in his quarters, but opened his eyes at the potentially imagined pressure shift in the air. Adam was back and Nigel felt he should see if he had caused any problems that would be added to his list of things to deal with later. Throwing on a nightshirt that had been in a ball on the floor, Nigel stalked back into the main chambers of the flat.

"It almost sunrise," Nigel said, crossing his arms and leaning against the door jam. "Did you caller raise enough hell for you to have a death wish?"

Adam slipped his cravat from around his neck and snorted. "Old age keeps me young," he replied, lifting an eyebrow as he regarded Nigel. "He tired before I did, and I'd no business waiting there all day for him to wake again."

He considered his boots by the door, one standing, one tipped, his coat, the cravat he now let slip from his fingers to the table that had hours ago held Nigel's bloodied clothes. Adam brought his hands up to undo his shirt.

"And death is just a wish, for me, my lovely thing. I'm further from it than you are." It wasn't a threat. Just a fact.

"It's a wish you know I could grant."

The words slipped out before Nigel could reign them in but he was able to keep his calm. He was beginning to get to know Adam. Even if he couldn't predict the vampire's moods, Nigel still knew he could entertain.

Adam's smile grew by a degree and he considered Nigel with narrowed eyes. He'd never been afraid of Nigel. He knew the man could do him harm, could destroy his coven if he wished - he was clever enough, and strong. But he wouldn't be able to kill him. Not alone. Not with the knowledge he didn't have of creatures Adam's age.

"You tease," he ended up saying, stepping nearer, the collar of his shirt hanging loose now over his collarbone. "Perhaps after breakfast."

Nigel also took a step forward, keeping his arms crossed. "Your breakfast or mine?"

 _How does he always look like fresh sculpted marble_ , he found himself thinking as he admired the sharpness of those collarbones, the paleness of the skin that almost glowed in the dim light. Perhaps it was the lingering memory of kissing Gabi that pulled at his feelings. Nigel didn't want to consider that it could be more than that. Especially with the urge to push Adam's hair back making his fingers itch.

Adam allowed himself to smile wide, teeth almost human if four weren't just a little too sharp, just a little too white.

"Mine," he replied. "Since the last meal was so rudely interrupted." He watched Nigel a moment before pulling his shirt over his head and tossing it aside as well, unashamed in front of him. "You're also welcome to sleep the day away in my bed, if you've no plans."

The offer had been made before, mocking, wheedling, teasing... but more and more Adam found that he made it in earnest. He wouldn't wake throughout the day, it was almost impossible for him to do so, but the very thought of sharing his space - as sacred as it was genuinely _safe_ \- and allowing himself to be so vulnerable warmed him. They would be as close to equals, there, as anywhere else in this world.

Nigel leaned down close, a smile of his own on his lips, "When hell freezes over, _darling_."

He didn't mean it. The words tasted wrong on his tongue and they hung in the air lopsided and out of place. But even if they both knew he was lying, it didn't mean Nigel had to tell the truth. Although, the truth also included that fact that Nigel wouldn't know what to do were he to share Adam's bed...

He walked past his master back towards the table. "Did you want me as I was before we were interrupted?" Nigel was well aware of the double meaning in his words as he ran a hand along the back of the chair.

Adam watched him, eyes narrowed in delight. It was a welcome game, this catch and release between them. Few could keep it up as long as Nigel had and stay alive. Some he'd turned, finding the change immediately detrimental to his desires for them. Others he'd consumed, finding that in the end, the only warmth they could ever give him was through their life.

Pity.

He didn't think of either end for Nigel. For him, Adam had all the time in the world.

"Breakfast comes after sleep, no?" He remarked. "As yours should, now. Did you want to hunt it down yourself, or have it brought to you? You've grown spoiled with me."

An eyebrow raised was all the answer Nigel gave to his question. He may as well go get dressed if he was free to do as he pleased.

"I don't believe that _I_ am the one who is spoiled here," Nigel said with a slight shrug of his shoulders. "I don't see the need to bother your lesser house pets."

"You'll have to tell me if the buildings have grown black with industry yet," Adam replied, working the buttons on his pants next. "Or if they just appear so in the nighttime. And," he stepped free of the loosened fabric, cocking his head at Nigel. "I expect you here for breakfast. Or I'll send my cats out to chase the dog down."

As Nigel neared once again, he leaned close the same way he had so many times with his beautiful Gabriella. "I would expect nothing less," he breathed, his lips barely caressing the skin of Adam's cheek.

The streets were still quiet as Nigel walked along them, dressed in the silly English styles that Adam provided him. But stranger things than him had walked these streets during the day so Nigel wasn't concerned of any staring. He was even less concerned with finding an inn serving breakfast at this hour. He had mostly behaved himself, anxious for the moment when Adam would tire of him. But even now that time had not come. Nigel had earned the chance to indulge himself. Even just a little.

Few places stopped serving the one thing that made them money; Nigel would not have to go far to find a drink. He might have to go further for a good one. His master may be impossible, infuriating, and many other things besides, but he was rich, and he was clever, and he was surprisingly generous with his coin. 

Nigel found a place, lavish on the outside as it certainly would be in, and entered, finding the bar empty of all but three patrons, one of whom was asleep. The barkeep gave him a once-over, silver whiskers trembling above his frown, but said nothing, his expression one of polite tolerance as Nigel sat down.

"Top shelf?" the man asked. His voice was accented, perhaps he'd come from the villages, seeking employment in the city and finding it where most men found their detriment.

"Of course," Nigel smirked. It was nice to know that even the higher classes were unconcerned with the time of day to serve a customer with deep pockets.

Along with his high shelf whiskey, the barkeeper brought him a glass of țuică and a plate of eggs and bread.

"Cheers," he said with his own glass of țuică. 

Nigel returned the toast, downing the liquor before tucking into his breakfast and whiskey. At least the food would keep him from going too far overboard too quickly.

That being said, it wasn't long before one drink became two. And two became five. And then the count was lost in clinking glasses. The tavern hadn't exactly filled up but the longer Nigel stayed the more people trickled in and out. Smiles all around, Nigel was _definitely_ having a good time. He hardly remembered the last time he had been surrounded by the living.

The barman was replaced with a younger counterpart as the day went on, and he seemed just as invested in Nigel's enjoyment of the liquor, food, and company that had gathered. He wasn't flashing his money, bought drinks only for himself, but Nigel could feel himself returning to his old self here, almost. He didn't think of Gabi or Darko or Adam or anyone at all. He thought of himself and the way his skin heated, the way his heart sped.

He took another meal, watching new patrons enter the tavern through a warm drunken haze before fingering his last coins and setting them to the scratched wood with a click.

By the time he found himself penniless that evening, Nigel felt on top of the world. He left in good spirits, full of spirits, to return to spirits. He found he couldn't stop laughing at his own observation, leaning against a lamppost until his delight eased enough for him to breathe again.

He hadn't felt this alive in a long, long time.

Nigel laughed loud and long at that thought before staggering back along the cobblestone towards the overgrown monstrosity he called home. Continuing to giggle on his way. 

He had made it back in one piece, but the stairs proved to be far from a friend. The others in the house exchanged whispers and judgemental glances as they watched Nigel stumble and curse his way to the third floor. He didn't care. He felt alive, _human_ for the first time in years. The third floor couldn't come soon enough and when it finally did, Nigel threw open the heavy double doors and entered the apartments.

"The sun is down and the night is young," he announced as he made his way to one of the plush sofas and flopped down on it, stretching out with his one leg over the armrest.

Adam - who had been sitting in his favourite chair - watched him over the top of his book. He glanced up towards the doors, where Bogdan and Constantin were peering in, curious and amused, and shook his head. He kept his eyes on the boys as they reluctantly closed the doors before turning his gaze to Nigel again.

He was sloshed. Absolutely _devastated_ on alcohol. Adam had never seen him this way, and it was almost endearing to see him this way now; ridiculous and youthful.

"My, my," he said, setting his feet on the floor one at a time. He was dressed this evening in loose, Turkish pants and the shirt from the night before. "I see you've certainly enjoyed yourself."

"Yessssssss," Nigel drew out the word in a drunken drawl, his accent thicker than ever. "Every man needs his drink."

Nigel's laughter bubbled up in him again as he looked towards Adam, clothed in far more traditional clothing. He looked at his own English attire, wrinkled and damp from spilled drinks and careless mucking about.

"We've swapped attire," he giggled. "I'm the fancy one."

It _was_ amusing. Adam rarely dressed down. He watched Nigel from where he sat a moment before standing up and coming nearer. Adam could see the speed of Nigel's pulse at his throat, could feel the heat coming off of him. He smelled entirely human, and Adam didn't bother suppressing the sound of want that escaped his throat.

He wanted to taste, to savour. To pull Nigel's voice long and languid in his drunken pleasure.

Adam was on him so fast that Nigel didn't even see him move. Adam's fingers snared in Nigel's hair, an almost affectionate tug, before he drew his knuckles down Nigel's face. He set a knee between Nigel's legs and his free hand to his shoulder and hovered over him.

"Have we swapped roles, then, as well?" he inquired. "You the master, and I the prey?"

Nigel's breath caught in his throat but his brain was so far gone from the liquor pumping through his bloodstream, that actions were all he could manage. Without thought or concern or even a blink of hesitation, Nigel did what he found himself wanting to do since being brought to live upstairs.

He yanked on Adam's shirt, tugging him down to lay on Nigel's chest. He put his finger in those thick curls - softer than he ever imagined they could be - and tugged his master's hair as their lips crashed together. Nigel let loose a growl from his throat, breathing sharply through his nose as he kissed Adam.

He was certain Adam had begun to kiss him back, but Nigel _needed_ more as he tugged harder on Adam's hair, revealing that delicious expanse of neck he'd been teased with. Nigel's lips left Adam's and moved to the crook of his neck. He bit down.

Adam damn near _purred_ his pleasure. It had been a long time since he'd been handled this way, without care for propriety or Adam's strength. Nigel moved him as he wanted and Adam let him. He fell into the fantasy for a moment, of being moral, just like him.

Then he dug his nails into Nigel's shoulder and pushed him back down. For a moment, though, just a moment. Then Adam rolled his body against Nigel's beneath him, delighting in the fact that Nigel was aroused but physically unable to show it.

He was extraordinary; flushed, strong, _alive_. Adam brought their lips together before Nigel could complain and kissed him hard, moaning into it, body trembling with it, before he eased up his own strength and went pliant again.

They were kissing again, and Nigel let go of Adam's hair to trail down his sides, across his back. He slipped his hands beneath the fabric of Adam's shirt, running far too rough palms against far too soft skin. It was like clutching a pillow to him.

Nigel's tongue pushed into Adam's mouth. The feeling of _possession_ was taking over him. He wanted Adam to be his the way he was Adam's. The way he once had Gabi. He knew Adam was a beast from the far depths of the Hell he hardly believed in, that he could snap Nigel's neck on a whim, that it could all turn to blood in the blink of an eye. But that somehow only made Nigel's desire burn hotter as he gracelessly tried to roll them into flipped positions and ending up falling from the sofa, pinning Adam against the rug on the floor.

The impact of the fall would hardly hurt his master, but Nigel stopped for a moment, watching that beautiful face as he breathed heavily. The room was spinning and Nigel finally became self-aware of his inebriated state. Though that didn't make him care any more about it.

No. Thinking let to cessation and having Nigel stop was the last thing Adam wanted. He hooked his legs around him, grasping him by the lapels of his coat to draw him close again, and set his teeth against the marks already hot on Nigel's neck.

It was brief, a nip, really, but enough to get Nigel to shift above him, again. Adam sucked, just enough to taste, enough to bring that heat within him and shiver with it.

He could get drunk himself, with the vintages mingling in Nigel's blood.

Nigel inhaled sharply at the bites, at the feeling of Adam feeding on him like this.

"Again," he breathed, rolling his hips down against Adam. The feeling had sent a surge through him unlike anything else and Nigel wanted it to happen again. Always. Forever. He didn't fucking care. "Do that again."

Adam obliged, feeling his pulse hammer in his ears as it merged with Nigel's, a pounding of life within him. He freed a hand to press against Nigel's back, knowing he'd leave bruises, scratched, marks, and delighting in the thought.

He pulled away before the pleasure blinded him. Adam wanted this to last, wanted to enjoy his breakfast, the beautiful thing above him, before logic or reason took over and Nigel stopped him.

Or tried to.

The struggle had always been such a draw for Adam.

He offered his own throat, instead, letting Nigel claim and illusion of control, and moaned beneath him.

 _Every man needs his drink_.

Nigel licked along Adam's bared throat, biting down just beneath his jaw and sucking at the skin. In that moment Nigel wanted little else than to feast on his own master.

The energy in the room was overwhelming as the power in the air crackled like lightning about to strike. If only he _could_ bite Adam the way he was bitten. If only...

All marks would be gone by next sundown.

With far too little effort for something so small, Adam flipped them, straddling Nigel and sitting back to watch him a moment, fingers spread against his chest.

"Tempting thing," he breathed. He could feel Nigel hard beneath him, inebriation nothing against the call of the thrall, of being bitten. "Ask me nicely."

Slow enough to be sensual without driving himself mad, Nigel shifted beneath Adam to rub against him. The vampire wanted him to beg. He truly was a hunter brought to his knees before the darkness.

Nigel placed his hands over Adam's, lacing fingers as he smirked, "And if I don't?"

Adam laughed. It was an empty threat. What would he do? Kill him? Both of them knew he wouldn't. And both of them wanted this.

Instead, Adam tensed his thighs, arched his back and rocked their bodies together, over and over until Nigel was breathless beneath him, eyes at half-mast, neck tacky with blood.

And then, just as easily, Adam stopped moving, poised above him. "You will like it," he promised softly, "if you do."

Nigel let go of another growl and rested his hands at Adam's hips, thumbs running along the curve of bone. Nigel had begged only once in his life. He had come a long way since that moment.

"Please." His voice was like gravel as it came out low and rough. " _Dracu,_ Adam, _please_."

Adam didn't tease him further, bending to the word with a needy sound of his own. His hand sought between Nigel's legs, grasping confidently and stroking him, as their mouths met again. 

Adam couldn't get enough of him.

He wanted him,

Damn it all, he _wanted him_.

Nigel broke the kiss with another curse, a whimper, seeking hands against Adam's thighs, his back, his hair. Adam drew his tongue against the roughness of Nigel's jaw, breathing him in, nuzzling possessively against him, before bringing his lips to the punctures in Nigel's neck. 

He continued to stroke, continued to shift his body against Nigel's hands until he himself was trembling with the overwhelming desire flowing through them both. He saw galaxies behind his eyes, felt Nigel's breath hitch against his ear.

It was too much. Not enough. Overwhelming either way. Nigel felt like his heart was going to burst out of his chest as he began to tense, his breathing stopped as he arched up and came between them. He could feel Adam's grip tighten on him as he sucked harder at Nigel's throat.

Nigel wasn't even sure if he called anything out, but he could feel the sensation in his fingertips fade, his grip loosen, his vision going to black...

He faded there on the rug, never having experienced anything at all like what he had just been through. 

Adam set his forehead against Nigel's and let himself catch his breath, despite his lack of a need to breathe. He was shaking. His entire body sang with Nigel's blood and he was drunk with it; with the whiskey, with the arousal, with the desperate need to live.

He set both hands against Nigel's face and kissed him, even as the other couldn't kiss him back. He kissed him with the passion and softness of a first lover to another and then, with a soft moan, just lay against him. 

He could feel Nigel's pulse against his own chest and meditated on the rhythm. He hadn't bled him dry, just enough to pull consciousness from him, to ease him into a long sleep. He might be out for two days. He'd made sure on the boys brought him food, water, opiates if his head was killing him - and it would be once he woke.

Adam nuzzled him again. He regretted absolutely nothing.

He'd wanted this stupid man for two years.

He didn't know how long they lay together before Adam pushed himself to stand and stretched his entire body with a groan. He felt invigorated. He felt invincible.

He carried Nigel to his rooms, deciding against having him wake up in Adam's bed unaware of how he'd gotten there. He undressed him, cleaned him up. For a good while he lingered in the doorway, watching Nigel sleep, before turning away with a grin and closing the door behind him.


	4. Chapter 4

When Nigel awoke, the first thing he registered was the pain. The majority of his body was on fire, especially from the shoulders up. He didn't dare attempt to sit up. Even he wasn't that stupid.

His room was dark, but then again it normally was, so he had no idea what time it was, let alone how much time had passed.

Surely Adam would have come to get him should he be needed...

 _Shit_.

Nigel couldn't remember much of what happened. He vaguely remembered the tavern, the drinks and the laughter. He remembered tripping up the stairs and then...

It slowly started to come back. But there was no way _that_ could have happened. It was a dream. A mix of drink and a starved desire for affection.

The more Nigel thought of it and tried to put the pieces together, the more his head throbbed. He glared at the darkness above him, wishing the pain to stop and his head to clear.

He didn't know how long he lay there before he attempted to roll over - the most he'd allow himself to move out of fear for falling the fuck over. On the table beside him, a jug of water, a glass, and a tincture bottom of laudanum.

 _That_ was certainly welcome.

Surprisingly, there was a plate of fresh fruit beside it all and sweet sticky buns, too.

The water is what Nigel went for first. Despite his haze, he was smart enough to take it slow. He wasn't about to make the mistake of drinking too quickly and being sick all over the floor. Adam hadn't like that in the past and Nigel doubted he would appreciate it now.

At having managed to sit and drink without much of an issue, Nigel carefully reached for one of the pears set out for him. The soft fruit wouldn't be too much work fo his sore muscles and he welcomed the sweetness that claimed his tastebuds. As his teeth sunk into it, a flash of the night before returned to him. A flash of biting at Adam's tender throat like he was one of the Damned, himself. Nigel's face warmed at the thought, the feeling. Lost in the feeling of his teeth sinking into the pear, pressed against Adam's throat.

He ate slowly, strength returning as his body took in the sweetness of the fruit, more water. He considered the laudanum, knew it would knock him out again, and decided against it. Perhaps when he was ready to sleep again. For when he figured out what the _hell_ had happened.

Perhaps he'd bitten Adam, confidence up with the amount of drink in his system, but surely he hadn't-

Nigel blinked, looked under the covers and groaned.

Naked.

Clean.

It could only mean one of two things: either what his mind was trying to push him to believe had happened, or nothing had happened at all. The only other option was he stumbled home stark fucking naked.

A closer inspection of his body had Nigel wincing. His chest looked like someone had tried to attack him. _Or..._ urge him closer, fingertips pressing to his chest to hold him down as-

He trailed his own fingertips down his chest, wincing at even the light pressure. He felt the welts, the cuts, the bruises, and wanted nothing more than to sink entirely into the mattress beneath him. And yet... he wished for the memories of what had happened. The _feeling_ lingered as his consciousness returned more and more, but he wanted that back in its entirety.

 _Shameful_ , he thought. _Fucking shameful._

He wanted to fold in on himself, but Nigel knew that option had long since past. He needed to face this and face it fully or he would go on hating himself until the day he was freed by the cold hand of death.

He sighed and even _that_ was painful. Why had Adam indulged him? Why has it come to this? _Why?_

After what felt like several hours - thoughts lazily floating through his mind and sensations ghosting against his skin - Nigel finally pushed himself to get out of bed. His balance was shaky, but his own. He found clothes, he dressed, and finally - with another painful sigh - he moved to leave his room.

"Nigel," Adam's voice was a purr, a sound too familiar to be comfortable. "I _must_ say, you're looking delicious. Did you sleep well?"

The clothes Nigel had thrown on were the loose, local clothing of Romania to better keep the pressure off of his wounds. He looked a right mess and knew it so he gave a weak glare in Adam's direction as he rubbed at his temple and approached him.

"What time is it?" he asked, his voice raw and rough. Nigel wasn't in the mood for verbal sparring. 

Adam casually reached into his vest for his pocket watch, clicking it open to check. "A little after three," he said. "You slept just over thirty hours."

_Thirty hours._

Had Nigel the energy, he may have been shocked. Instead, he felt heavier than he did when he pulled himself from his bed. He took a few steps and sat down heavily in the chair across from Adam's place on the sofa.

Adam considered him a moment, tilting his head and allowing his eyes to run over Nigel's form. He gazed for a while at the dark bruise that spread across the side of his neck before swallowing and trying to catch Nigel's eye again.

"Will you eat?"

The table was empty, meaning even Adam hadn't known when Nigel might wake. Usually, there was proper food already prepared and presented for him.

"Not enough to be of use to you," Nigel admitted. His hand strayed to his neck, as it often absently did, but the slightest touch made him cringe in pain as a hiss came from between his teeth. Adam hadn't been that rough while feeding in a very long time. 

"Bogden will need to find a _nevinovat_ for you."

Adam smiled at him, expression softer than it would otherwise have been if Nigel was up for the teasing. Perhaps he'd feasted a little too much...

"I've no need for one," he admitted. "You've sated me for days to come, my lovely thing. I will, however, get Bogden to find you a hot meal. I'd get him to draw you a bath, too, but I think I might find myself... _not_ myself...were he to do so in my presence."

Another grin, bright and quick, before Adam pushed to stand. He neared Nigel but didn't crowd him, eyes scanning quickly over his pallor, creating at the point of his pulse to count the beats.

Nigel felt his face warm under the scrutiny and he looked to the floor. He didn't think he could bear to look Adam directly in the eye. Not while he wasn't struggling to keep his own emotions in check. And Nigel had never been good at that.

He wanted Adam on him again. Even if it _had_ only been a dream. He wanted to bask in his touch and his taste. But it was a wrongness he _couldn't_ let himself fall victim to.

Instead, Nigel tried his hand at snark, "Never thought the day would come when you would be against finding another pretty thing to prey on."

Adam's eyes narrowed and his titled his head to regard the conflicted man in front of him. "When was the last time I had another boy in here who wasn't you?" he asked.

Nigel growled, looking up at Adam at last, but not lifting his head. The idea alone had him on edge. What was worse was that he couldn't tell if it was because of Adam's conditioning or because of his own feelings. Thrice damned rat shit from hell.

"How am I supposed to know your goings-on if I'm out running errands or passed out in the corner?"

"Would you be jealous if you walked in on me with a harem?" Adam asked, smiling wide enough that his fangs showed. 

"Would _you_?" Nigel deflected.

He crossed his arms and cocked his hip, refusing to acknowledge Nigel's snark about a harem. "Did you enjoy your day out? When you sampled the city's selection of whiskey?"

"Far from the _city's_ selection. I wouldn't be here if I had done that sort of round."

Nigel had enjoyed his time with other humans. Time spent without feeling like a house pet or a food source. Time spent feeling alive and in control of his own fucking life.

"Well, you're welcome to do so if you please," Adam said, and he meant it. As much as he'd rather have Nigel at his beck and call at all times, Adam also understood how overwhelming captivity was. It was as lethal as loneliness.

A silence settled between them and Adam watched Nigel a while more, indulged in letting his presence make the man squirm, before turning on his heel to move towards the doors of the apartment. He called down the stairs, a lazy drawl in a dialect Nigel was only vaguely familiar with, for food to be brought up.

"And coffee," Nigel muttered, and surprisingly Adam asked for it to be brought up as well.

They returned to silence as they waited for the food to arrive. It was heavy and made Nigel shift even more beneath the way it of it.

"What..." he tried. "What happened?"

Surly if vampires could get drunk from the inebriation of their victims, they wouldn't suffer half the consequences. Nigel had not perfected holding back his desperate need for information, and this was one of those situations where the need to ask the question made him uncomfortable to the edges of his limits.

"When you returned?" Adam asked, raising an eyebrow. Amnesia was a common side effect with prolonged bites, most times only being temporary. But he also considered that the drink might also have been a factor.

Nigel nodded stiffly. Even that much making him wince.

"You made sure the house knew you had entered," Adam said, a trill of amusement in his voice. "You found it _highly_ entertaining that I'd chosen to dress down that evening and brought my clothes to a level of disarray to match your own."

It was a true enough recount. Adam thought back to the way Nigel had yanked him about, how he'd handled him as though Adam were a lover rather than a being so old he had grown up in the cloisters of the first Lindisfarne Priory.

Nigel rubbed his hands over his face. Exhausted again already on top of the embarrassment and the surprise that Adam wasn't telling him this in anger. Although if Adam _had_ disproved, Nigel figured he wouldn't have been alive long enough to be hearing about his actions, let alone embarrassed about them.

" _Trei nenorociți dracu descendenți,_ " he cursed. _Thrice-damned hellspawn._

Adam laughed, a genuine and bright thing, and raised an eyebrow.

"You certainly asked nicely of the thrice-damned hellspawn when it told you to." The door opened and Adam didn't go on as two of the younger boys in the coven came in, one with a tray, the other with flatware as well as a steaming jug of coffee.

Neither looked at Adam, just Nigel, and neither said a word before departing again. Adam watched them go, tongue absently toying with the tip of a sharp fang. He flicked his eyes to Nigel again.

"Breakfast," he unnecessarily reminded him, "to keep up your enviable stamina for next time."

Wincing and grunting with pain, Nigel stood to move over to the dining room table. Damn Adam. Damn this Hellmouth of an estate. Damn it _all_.  He wanted to spit out some ferocity at Adam but couldn't muster the strength as he sat down and poured himself some coffee with trembling hands. At least he didn't spill it. Nigel got through filling up his plate as best he could before Adam's words hit him at last.

"Next time?"

Adam's smirk, crooked and amused, sent a chill through Nigel as he moved to settle into a chair two away from him. 

"Do you have somewhere else to be?" Adam asked, tone low in mock seriousness. "While I will take your suggestion to find pretty young things to share my bed under advisement, it is you who ultimately sustains me. A preferred vintage, if you will."

He watched Nigel take a slow sip of his coffee, watched his throat work as he swallowed. 

Oh, he had been _lovely_ that night.

"I would taste every part of you," Adam continued. _I_ will _, as I am sure you will of me as well._

Nigel almost choked on his coffee, coughing and sputtering. He wasn't sure what he had been expecting but it certainly wasn't this nonchalance regarding the subject.

Adam watched him, a baleful gaze. "Two years demanding to live and you'll choke on coffee trying to prove me wrong?" He couldn't help but smile. He wondered just how much Nigel remembered. If he remembered the sounds he'd made, the sounds he'd pulled from Adam in return. If he remembered the pleasure coursing through them both like sunlight.

For the first time in his life, Nigel was at a loss. He had never had _less_ of an idea of what to do or say or even fucking _feel_. The idea of anyone other than the servants entering Adam's rooms did something to him that he didn't like. It was a possessiveness that was strange and even animal. It made him want to growl. Even his eyes narrowed at the very suggestion. 

"Who said I was trying to prove you wrong?" he managed to get out as his coughing fit cleared. "I don't give a fuck whose life you intend to ruin."

Adam hummed, pleased, and unfolded from the chair. He ignored the way Nigel flinched as he stepped into his personal space and bent to draw the tip of his nose against Nigel's messy hair.

"Then I'll continue to _ruin_ yours," he said. His breath moved the strands and Nigel shifted against it. Adam stood back as he continued, "I've a meeting. The night waits for no one and you're a big boy, safe at home without need for a nanny. I'd take the time to rest, if I were you. Recover. But, as always, your time without me is yours to use as you see fit."

Nigel gave a curt nod, reminding himself that he wasn't to kiss Adam. No matter what his body urged him to do. He wouldn't fall victim to that way of thinking.

Adam smiled at him again before he turned and was gone. Nigel was left alone to his food he couldn't bring himself to eat and his muddled thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation note:
> 
>  **nevinovat** : an innocent


	5. Chapter 5

Had he the time, Adam would have walked. But with the moon being already past its zenith, he couldn't risk the possibility of exposure. Especially not near the place he was heading. He was in enough trouble, the tension seeping into his skin any time he even _thought_ of the other coven.

Sven wasn't a forgiving soul. Barely old enough to pose a threat, but stong. Perhaps it had been a mistake for Adam to send his hunter into that territory, seeking to cause a stir by ridding the place of its new, young things. Perhaps he'd grown languid in his boredom, lazy in the tenuous peace that had held so long.

As the carriage bumped along the cobblestones, Adam considered the problem before him: lives owed for lives. The irony that Sven was out for blood wasn't lost on Adam, the issue was that unlike Adam, Sven had yet to develop the cynical sense of humour that came with decades melting into centuries. Lives came and went, even seemingly immortal ones. Sometimes they weren't worth the effort to avenge.

Hell, it wasn't as though Adam had taken a _mate_ of his.

He wasn't even sure if Sven's mate had followed him to Romania. Last he'd heard through the grapevine was she wasn't happy with their fearless leader and his egotistical choices. Good for her. Adam would much rather quarrel with a coven leader worth her weight in arguments. Sven was little more than a sad second.

As he neared his destination, Adam sighed, rubbing his eyes with gloved fingers. He'd rather be home, teasing Nigel into remembering - or misremembering - their last encounter. He would rather be curled by the fire in nothing but a loose robe, reading. He would rather, in short, be not _here_.

The house wasn't unlike Adam's own, though he found flaws in it any time he came near. Within, a coven of a similar size, but unlike Adam's, hosing both girls and boys of different ages. At the door, he was greeted by one he hadn't met before, but one who seemed to know who _Adam_ was. Perhaps by reputation if not by sight. As he wandered lazily into the library to wait, he caught a glimpse of perhaps the only thing that made visits to his nightmare worthwhile.

"Benny," he purred, sauntering over to the angelic little thing trying to reach a book her fingers couldn't even brush as she stretched to her full height. He took it down for her, holding it aloft. "It has been a long time."

Bénédicte de la Courtier was one of the few who could rival Adam in age, and surpass him in violence. At no more than 127 centimetres in height, and luscious curly hair flowing down more than half that, she was the very image of a priceless porcelain doll. But "idiotically suicidal" was the only way to describe anyone who _dare_ say that to the girl. Except for Adam, that was.

With a glare as fiery as her bronze curls, Béné snatched the book from Adam's hand with her own fierce gloved one. "Not long enough, it would seem. Although even I'm surprised you cared to show yourself. Word has it you have a new pet keeping you occupied."

Adam grinned at the girl. "As everyone should. Eternity is far more enjoyable when good playthings come to call."

"If only _you_ were a good plaything."

"Green isn't your colour," Adam told her, his smile just as bright. He watched Bénédicte open her book against her palm, pointedly ignoring Adam as she sought for what she wanted from its pages. He didn't interrupt, but he didn't leave. He wasn't about to go out of his way to find Sven.

"You're not privy to the messes of this house as you are to the messes of others', are you?" he asked casually after a while.

"Messes made by you?"

"By proxy," Adam countered, crossing his arms and leaning against the bookcase, eyes on the door as he addressed his companion. "But you know how I do enjoy corrupting the youth of this century."

Bénédicte raised an eyebrow as she looked up from her book. "You can't mean to tell me your plaything is your left hand. Surely even you are not so stupid."

Plenty of covens had killers in their ranks, left hands to act out cruel deeds for their sires. But a human? Reckless beyond imagining.

Adam clicked his tongue, brows furrowing. "You're well versed in Tzu," he said, "and Petrarch, dare I say. Both were fans of keeping enemies closer than friends."

"And both are dead," Bénédicte pointed out flatly. "What does that tell you?"

"They were probably wasted as a good meal," Adam grinned. "And sometimes right hands are busy."

He let that sit a moment, enjoying the dramatic eye roll that came as his answer. In truth, he was hiding behind his jests. A concern began to unravel in his chest that perhaps the theoretical ambush and practical slaughter would be attributed to the very one Adam wanted left out of this. 

"Perhaps there are better uses for both," Bénédicte mused, more thinking aloud than actually addressing Adam. "Although my uses would greatly differ from your own. I do wonder how you've managed to keep yourself alive, _ma fleur délicate."_

If Adam chose to annoy her, she wasn't afraid to insult him back, a quality that he appreciated in the girl. Before he could over his volley, there was a knock at the door and Béné looked towards the frame.

" _Quoi_?" she asked sharply, annoyed with the interruption.

A meek-looking young lady with shallow cheeks and dark eyes said, "Forgive me, _Mademoiselle_ , Master Sven is ready for you both."

With a flick of her wrist, Béné dismissed the maid and sighed. "May our sparring continue later. Your duty calls you."

Adam pursed his lips.

"Let us hope it is not a death call," Béné added as she set her book aside. "I'd never forgive Sven if he robbed me of that pleasure."

"If the twelfth century didn't kill me, _Sven_ hardly will," Adam muttered. He'd enjoyed Béné's company for what felt like his entire existence this way. She was younger, certainly, but Adam could hardly remember his first 500 years without consulting history books and knew she was in a similar position. The girl was as close to a friend as Adam had ever had. "After you, darling."

He deferred to Béné as they left the library, giving acknowledgement to her power within the house, as it lay. He was here as a visitor, as a _guest_. He adjusted his cuffs, flexed elegant fingers, and with a sigh followed her to the drawing-room.

He was cutting it very close in coming home. Adam had long since learned the way his body spoke to the night and the night replied. He could feel the weight of his limbs as the sun crawled nearer, even if he was in a cave without light at all. He stumbled as he made his way upstairs, exhausted and angry at the feeling. He could stay up if he absolutely had to, if his survival depended on it, but once the sun had reached its peak, his body would give out.

The meeting hadn't been a death call, but only just. Though Béné wasn't either hand of that organization, she had influence, and Adam found himself indebted to her for being able to leave at all. Threats had been made. Histories revisited. Curses suggested. Thankfully, by the time he managed his way to his carriage, Nigel's name was still a mystery, as was his participation in the massacre.

Reaching his apartments on the third floor, Adam ended up kicking the door closed, falling back to lie on the run with a groan of frustration.

Nigel heard the thud of the door before the groan hit his ears and he put down his daily paper to investigate. He had gotten enough sleep, his body tender but not nearly in as much pain as it had been before, but it had thrown off his body clock so even he was dragging his feet.

"Adam?" he called, seeing his master on the floor. He couldn't help but smirk a little at the sight. The masterful vampire looked like a spoiled child in the middle of a protest. "Did something happen at your meeting? Or perhaps you went for a detour and too many rejections from beautiful people with better things to do has left you this way."

Adam rolled his eyes before turning to press his cheek to the floor to look at Nigel. He was exhausted, but he'd been worse.

"I'm finding myself in the middle of an existential crisis," he replied dryly. "They happen every hundred years or so when I run out of beautiful people to reject me. Why do you think I left England? The inbreeding was rife, the consequences of such enough to make even me shudder." He drew a hand over his face. "Help me up."

Nigel remained where he was. "You didn't ask very nicely," he smirked, cocking his head to the side. 

Adam's eyes narrowed, his lips tilting in a smile without his permission. Oh, this was good. Clever thing. With a petulant huff of breath, Adam turned his head to look back towards the ceiling again.

"Might I impose upon your mortal strength to carry me, weakened and helpless, to bed?" Adam looked back to Nigel once more, "Your bed, my bed, I've no preference. But I should warn you, for full disclosure, that were it to be yours, I might immolate in my sleep."

Nigel's smirk grew. He didn't know what in the hell "immolate" meant, but wasn't about to risk losing the moment to ask.

"As you wish, _master."_ The word came out dripping in mockery and sarcasm as Nigel knelt down to pick Adam up in his arms.

Adam made a noise of indignation but was far from in the mood for any of Nigel's defiant nonsense. While Nigel enjoyed the feeling of Adam's head reading against his collarbone, amazed at how light he actually was.

Nigel couldn't remember ever being in Adam's room before as he shouldered his way through the door. It was far more plain than Nigel expected, despite still being the grandest of rooms he'd ever seen. The large four-poster bed had thick curtains surrounding it, and it was a challenge to push them to the side to drop Adam on the mattress. And _drop_ him, he did.

Adam bounced a little from the fall and gave Nigel a narrow-eyed glare.

"I see why you say you seek _two_ maids. The first would run away from such treatment." He made himself more comfortable, resigned to the fact that he would wrinkle his clothes as he'd be sleeping in them. He tried in vain to remove his boots with his feel alone before resigning himself to keeping those on too.

Nigel rolled his eyes at how useless Adam was and found himself sitting down on the bed to help. He fought with one of the boots for a moment before he got it off and tossed it over his shoulder.

"You're welcome to join me," he said while he watched Nigel. "I've been told I sleep like the dead. Won't wake you with sentimental snuggling."

Nigel said nothing as he got the other boot off, tossing it as well. He moved his hands up to the buttons of Adam's shirt but his hands froze.

"Do the dead care about sleeping in such clothing?" he asked, his mouth suddenly dry.

Adam snorted. He had moments before whatever facsimile of life left him for the daylight hours.

"I prefer to sleep in no such clothing. Or any clothing, for that matter. I've grown accustomed to bare silk against my skin." He grinned, drawing up a knee. "But will you oblige me, I wonder?"

Nigel swallowed but found himself obliging. His hands shook ever so slightly as he unbuttoned Adam's shirt, reaching the last button and pushing the fabric from Adam's shoulders. He couldn't help himself, being close like this. He tucked his face into the crook of Adam's neck, kissing the skin he vaguely remembered biting.

Adam made a plaintive sound. Whether Nigel knew it or not, this was the absolute worst torment of teasing. Adam could barely move, could do little beyond close his eyes and let his head fall, baring his neck further.

"Temping thing," he whispered.

"Look who is talking," Nigel whispered back, pulling away just enough to look at Adam's face. "But what do you want?"

 _He_ wanted to kiss Adam more, to bring him closer. This docile yet still somehow predatory version of Adam intrigued him, made him understand his feelings even just a little bit more somehow.

"What do you want from me," he whispered again.

"I want..." Adam sighed, limbs heavy and eyes hooded. He wanted Nigel, but he wanted him willing. Petulant, proud, _fighting_ , but still willing. "More," he admitted, smiling. "And for longer. But right now..."

_Exhausted. Absolutely, completely exhausted._

"I want you to think about it until evening comes. Go decide what you want from _me_. Preferably, go where you won't see me return to my beautiful corpse state."

Nigel took his cue to leave, breathing a kiss along Adam's cheekbone as his eyes closed. A gesture to say "sleep well" without saying anything.

His chest tightened just so as he left the room for his own. Nigel found himself exhausted again and opted to return to his own bed.


	6. Chapter 6

Night had fallen an hour ago and Nigel had been up for the past two, his attention drifting between the paper he clutched too tightly in his hands and the firmly shut door of Adam's room. He had done as instructed, thinking of what he wanted from Adam, and had worked himself to sleep thinking of it. Once again, Nigel felt that tug of shame in him, but the feeling was overshadowed when the door he'd been watching finally opened.

It was entirely unfair how good Adam looked in that stupid silk robe. The thing was tied this time, though loosely, and Adam rubbed his eyes in a very human way as he made his way into the main room of the flat. He acknowledged Nigel with a tilt of his chin, a ghost of a smile, and moved to stand before him, rather than continuing his initial course towards the double doors.

"In all my time keeping this damnable schedule, I don't know if it's proper to greet you with 'good morning' or 'good evening'," Adam said.

"Does it really matter at all?" Nigel replied, looking up at Adam from his seat. "I only woke up now, myself."

He wanted Adam closer, to pull apart that knot holding his robe closed and run his tongue along the exposed skin. He wanted to be told to do it.

"Nice to see you not on the brink of a coma."

"Nice to be able to do more than mutter commands at you, helpless to your mercy," Adam replied, and he did step closer. "It's an unfortunate curse, one of many. Much as I would like to tempt fate and keep my eyes open for the day, I simply can't. Physiology won't allow it. Irritating beyond _words_ when you find yourself in the middle of a very pleasant exchange."

He stepped again, close enough that Nigel could touch him without having to stretch. "I owe you an apology for my shortness."

Nigel tentatively brought his hands up to rest at Adam's hips. "Not necessary," he said. "Besides, I don't think you are nearly as vulnerable as you would like me to believe you are. Just as we both know my freedom is not as grand as it seems."

"You can leave whenever you wish," Adam told him, and it was honest. Since their new arrangement six months ago, there was no guard to keep an eye on Nigel, no cage to keep him locked. He had access to and from the house at any moment of the day. What remained unspoken was that, despite any of his best potential efforts, Nigel _couldn't_ leave.

Nigel tugged lightly, bringing Adam that half step closer to stand between Nigel's knees. He craned his still bruised but not painful neck back to look up at Adam's face.

"I dare you to tell me I'm wrong."

Adam shrugged. "You'll just find yourself coming back." He paused, placing his hands on Nigel's shoulders. "Is that what you want of me? Freedom?"

Nigel stood, his full height towering over Adam and making Adam's hands slide off of his shoulders to his chest.. He didn't know what _freedom_ meant in relation to what he wanted, and that conflict threatened to rip him apart from the inside. But as he brought his hand up to Adam's cheek, his lips just barely beyond Adam's, he was sure of what he wanted in this moment.

"This conversation is tedious," he said. "I can think of better uses of your mouth."

Adam leaned to kiss him, smiling into it, closing his eyes as Nigel growled. A possessive sound as Nigel kissed him back. Adam had enjoyed lovers both Damned and mortal hundreds of times over the years, thousands even. It was a pleasure he delighted in and never abstained from. There was a power in being able to outlive something.

There was also a power in being held this way, and allowing it. Adam groaned, his hands balling into fists the clenched Nigel's clothes to hold him closer. For Adam, shame was as fleeting as a blizzard. One moment there, the next gone. There was no shame, for him, in admitting he wanted this, wanted _Nigel_. To enjoy each other however they were able before they couldn't anymore.

Or didn't want to.

Nigel ran his hands down Adam's back to his buttocks and gripped tight, lifting the smaller figure off the ground. It was an animal urge that took over.

Adam took the hint, wrapping his legs around Nigel's waist as the man carried him across the floor. Adam's fingers moved into Nigel's hair, grip as tight there as it was against his shirt. He pushed his tongue past Adam's lips, exploring the space to taste what he couldn't remember from the other night. His tongue passed over razor-sharp fangs and a chill when through him as he did so.

Adam's fingers curled tighter in Nigel's hair at the sensation. He could bite, it wouldn't even take much pressure, and their mouths would fill with blood...

But he didn't. Not yet. He was still very much sated, truly, and overindulgence let to laziness. Better to save his teeth for teasing, for playful nips against Nigel's skin. Right then, he let Nigel have what he wanted, let him dominate the kiss as Adam clung to him and returned it.

Rare, _so rare_ , that he was handled this way.

He grinned as Nigel navigated - though awkwardly - back to the bed, back to where just hours before he'd taken the liberty to kiss against Adam's skin, to ask him what he wanted. Nigel was more gentle as he put Adam down on the bed, leaning down at a clearly uncomfortable angle to keep from breaking the kiss.

"I won't break," he managed, between fevered kisses and tugging fingers as they shifted back on the covers, Adam robe slipping open in the process. "But I will mark... until the next slumber and perhaps a day after that but," he grinned, taking Nigel's lip between his teeth and tugging it gently, "then you'll just have to make them again."

Nigel growled and the second his lip slipped from Adam's teeth, his mouth was at Adam's throat. He was rough as he trailed bites and kisses along the pale skin, making sure he was rough enough to coat the skin in a scarf of marks.

One mark for every last one that had coated Nigel over the last two Christ-damned years.

"I _will_ break you," Nigel growled, breathing heavily. "I'll break you the same way you broke me."

Adam moaned, delighting in the sensations. Bites hard enough to hurt. Wonderful, powerful sucking to mar his skin with bruises. Nails catching just the same... Perfect. It was perfect. Adam wanted to be nowhere else.

"I dare you to," Adam murmured in a late reply, drawing his knees up to hold Nigel between them, his robe spread like water beneath them both. "Lay claim and keep it."

He finally allowed himself to reciprocate; not hard enough to turn this into a battle, but hard enough that Nigel could _feel_ him there, remember, even in flashes, that Adam was not human. That there was strength buried beneath the flimsy outer shell.

"Enough words," Nigel said, voice still low and heated, kissing him again and grinding his hips down. Fuck did he wish he hadn't dressed this morning. At least he was wearing the loos Romanian clothing again rather than the English foppery that filled most of his wardrobe. A part of him wanted to slow down, to take his time pulling the soft sounds and pleas from Adam's lips, but he didn't want to risk giving himself time to think about this.

No.

He _wanted_ this. To prove he could be this way, raw and demanding. To prove he wasn't afraid.

Still grinding on top of Adam, Nigel awkwardly tried to shift out of his clothes without breaking away from Adam.

Cursing under his breath, Nigel sat up to pull his shirt over his head, tossing it aside. He made to pin Adam once again, but was stopped by slender fingers sprawled across his chest.

It didn't seem to take any effort at all. Adam's fingers not even bending to hold Nigel still. He looked up, meeting Nigel's eyes, and smirked.

 _Go on_ , he seemed to say. _Push me_.

Nigel shifted his weight to take hold of Adam's left wrist, slowing moving it to pin his hand near his head. Then he did the same with Adam's right.

He stayed like that for a moment, panting ever so slightly and watching the challenge in Adam's eyes. He ducked his head down, recreating the hazy memory of when he licked across Adam's jugular and bit down right beneath the apple of his throat. Nigel released his grip on Adam's right wrist, bringing his hand down to draw his nails sharply down Adam's side, across his ribs.

Adam shuddered. A full-body movement that rippled down his back, brought his knees tighter around Nigel, feet pressing to the bed. He made a sound, too, a growling purr more closely associated with wild cats than sensual pleasure.

And yet.

What was Adam if not wild?

What was he if not a predator?

He reached over with his right hand and held it in his left, keeping himself pinned as he writhed to press up higher against Nigel, seeking friction for them both.

Nigel breathing in Adam, a deep breath as he dragged his nails farther down, digging deeper against flawless skin. He snaked down Adam's body, leaving marks across his chest. Nigel could feel the loose fabric of his pants tent with his erection, but first, he needed to mark Adam up as much as possible. He wanted to admire the bruises, the teeth marks, as he fucked him with the reckless abandon he had dreamed of between drunk and hazy thoughts.

Adam groaned, impatient. But he didn't rush him, didn't buck harder than he had been. The feeling of Nigel against him this way, rough, demanding, hard, predatory in his own right. It was absolutely invigorating.

He gasped as Nigel's nails broke skin, not enough to bleed but enough to feel. 

"Fuck," he moaned. "Tease. You absolutely fucking tease. I want your mouth."

Nigel reached Adam's hip, leaving another bruise in his wake before he looked up. "Such demands from someone who wanted to be broken," he smirked, running his tongue along the sharp hipbone before him. "What if I want to take my time?"

He didn't want to take his time. He wanted to get on with it. Get it out of his system. But the way Adam was a taut wire beneath him, demanding more, it made Nigel petulant and rebellious. He would do this his way. Not his master's.

"What if I'm the one who wants _your_ mouth?"

Adam laughed, arching his head back before looking at Nigel again. A bright grin brought his fans to stark relief, sharp and deadly.

"Do you?" Adam teased, drawing his tongue against one. "That's brave." He would not bite him. He would not hurt. Not here. Tease? Perhaps. Draw them gently against skin to price Nigel with gooseflesh? Certainly.

But not harm.

"Will you let me?" Adam asked, soft and sultry, lips covering his teeth once more, eyes wide with feigned innocence. "Lips and tongue and throat, if I promise no teeth?"

Nigel couldn't repress the shudder that ran through him at the amount of trust it would take to actually have Adam's mouth on him in that way. He felt he could trust Adam, if the vampire has wanted to kill him, he would absolutely have done it by now.

But his answer was, "What use do I have for promises I cannot believe?"

Just inches from his chin, Nigel was reminded of the hardness beneath him and smirked with an idea. Shifting lower, still dragging his nails down Adam's sides, he licked the length of the shaft and shuddered once again as he watched the sensation ripple through Adam.

"Who's to say that trust has truly been formed when we are so unevenly matched?"

Another lick. Another ripple.

Adam groaned, impatient and demanding, but still did not move his hands from above his head, or reach to bring Nigel where he wanted him. He shifted his thighs wider, laying pliant for Nigel's teasing against him. He wanted to feel that head around him, wanted to buck up to feel Nigel choke, just a _little_ , just _once_...

"What do you propose, then?" Adam asked, voice catching as Nigel licked him again.

Nigel mulled over the question, taking advantage of Adam's shifted position to bite at his inner thigh. He needed to learn to think faster on his feet when he was teasing in this way. His inexperience was showing and Adam kept calling his bluffs. They both knew that they wanted the same thing. Maybe it was better to just give in.

Nigel moved his mouth closer to Adam's balls, testing them both by running his tongue along them. It wasn't until this moment that Nigel noticed just how hairless Adam's body was and for that, he was grateful as he took one of the sensitive sacks into his mouth.

The sound Adam made was long and ended breathlessly. Sharpened senses were a gift as well as a curse some days. He brought a hand to his mouth, biting against a knuckle, before turning his head away, hair tangling on the pillow.

He wanted this. He wanted _more_.

"Nigel," he murmured, aiming for a warning tone but landing between keening and desperate.

Nigel brought his hands down to hold Adam's hips in place as he moved to take Adam's other ball in his mouth, sucking on it just slightly harder. The way Adam _whimpered_ his name made him hungry for more of those delicious sounds.

Adam snared his fingers in his own hair, tugging the curls straight before letting them free. He was shaking, as much from keeping himself still as from the pleasure Nigel wrought upon him. He cursed in a language Nigel didn't know, the sound of it archaic.

"Let me," Adam moaned.

Nigel smirked, letting Adam slip from his mouth. He ran his tongue up the hard shaft again before he taunted, "Let you _what_ , darling?"

As he saw Adam before him hands tangled tightly in his own curls, Nigel's breath hitched. He had never seen anything so beautiful in his entire life.

 _Never_.

Though pale, Adam looked less like marble and more human here, having fed so recently. The marks Nigel had wrought on him stark against otherwise flawless skin. His breath moved quickly through his chest, his throat clicking as he swallowed down his pride.

_No shame in enjoying this..._

"Let me," Adam groaned again, dropping a hand to Nigel's hair, grasping hard enough to bring Nigel's eyes up to him, "suck your _God-damned_ cock."

Nigel didn't need to be asked twice as he let Adam pull him back up to eye level by his hair. Nigel leaned in to kiss him, biting on his lower lip and he rolled over on the bed so Adam was on top of him.

"Be my fucking guest," Nigel whispered, his voice coated in that deep huskiness of a man aching from need. "Put that wicked tongue of yours to some use."

Adam grinned again, just enough to suggest the danger, not enough to show it, and moved to undo Nigel's pants. His fingers were practiced, deft. Many a young man, an old man, had felt these fingers against them. Adam had quickly become used to the hedonistic lifestyle immortality offered him.

And now, with eyes up through his messy curls before a hand pushed them from his face, Adam kept Nigel's gaze as he bent to take him into his mouth.

A brief enveloping, almost the entirety of his length, before he pulled back. A breath, unnecessary, but lovely for show, before Adam closed his eyes and sucked him down in earnest.

Nigel's knuckles went white as he clutched Adam's curls, the other gripping the bedspread beneath them. He wasn't sure what he expected - if he had expected anything at all - but it hadn't been having his cock taken in so much so quickly.

Letting out a stream of Romanian profanity, Nigel arched off the bed. His body was alive with an insurmountable amount of sparks as he watched Adam take in the entirety of his cock. He felt the tip brush against the back of Adam's throat, felt the danger of those fangs brushing against the sides of him. It was a thrill and a pleasure at the same time. Even then, those words hardly covered the feeling of it all.

" _Iisus Hristos_ ," he breathed, meeting Adam's gaze again beneath those long lashes.

 _Good_ , Adam thought, _take His name in vain. Blaspheme in the bed of a demon._

He brought a hand to stoke as he pulled back to concentrate on just the head for a time, sucking the soft foreskin between his lips before drawing it back, letting his tongue tease the slit instead.

He could do this for a long time, his mind overwhelmed with the smell, the taste, the feeling of Nigel beneath him. Be wanted to. But he teased only enough to have Nigel whimpering now, squirming beneath him. He wouldn't let him come this way, though. There was more he had in mind.

Nigel's breathing was ragged, his heartbeat erratic, he rocked his hips up in time with Adam's diligent stroking, loosening the grip in his hair to keep from tearing open his own palms with his fingernails.

"You're practiced at this," Nigel breathed. "I wonder how many would pay you the coin of a thousand whores to have a mouth like that defile them as you do me."

Adam hummed, drawing a hand through his hair as he sat back and stroked Nigel with the other.

"I have an answer for you," he said, "but I doubt you asked in earnest."

Years before this gift, by necessity, after, by choice. Adam brought a lip between his teeth and arched his back with a sigh. He didn't want to think of _that_ while his body was singing with his need for _this_ , when he ached with the foreshadowing of painful pleasures.

He reached for Nigel's hand, slipping their fingers together before bringing them to his mouth as Nigel sat up. He teased his lips against the fingertips, before opening his mouth to suck two fingers against his tongue. His eyes did not waver from Nigel, his hand did not still; the promise of this absolutely clear.

He allowed Nigel to touch the teeth that so scared and fascinated him. Allowed him to press his tongue down, seeking deeper into his mouth. And then, deliberately slowly, Adam drew the fingers free and sat closer, guiding Nigel's hand between his legs and back behind his balls.

With stunning amazement, Nigel allowed Adam to move him as he pleased. A strange sense of calm washed over him, the anime inside still hungry to turn Adam's insides out, but far more intimate than outright dominating. His hand was between Adam's legs, behind his cock at his entrance. Nigel swallowed, slowly pressing two fingers into Adam's asshole as the vampire above lowered down.

It was the warmth of it that surprised Nigel most, even as Adam hissed on his fingers. His poise was like a cat in heat and Nigel found himself mesmerized by it.

Adam rocked back against his hand, letting go of Nigel's cock to set his own hands on either of Nigel's shoulders to balance himself. He kept their eyes together, catching Nigel's chin with his fingertips to turn him back when he looked away.

Adam moaned, shivered, undulating slowly as his own hard cock twitched between his tighs.

With a soft sound, Adam leaned to kiss Nigel, to offer his mouth open and pliant for him, and grinning when the kiss was anything but. When he pulled back, he raised an eyebrow, rocking back harder on Nigel's hand. He lifted his own and held up two fingers. A challenge. A suggestion. 

Again, Nigel swallowed, unsure of what to make of the challenge. With his own free hand, he brought Adam's fingers to his lips, kissing the tips tenderly. "It's you who needs to be filled," Nigel whispered at last, his confidence shaky and he tried to cover it by pushing his fingers deeper inside of Adam.

He wasn't sure if his hesitation was fear, but Nigel did know he wanted to hear more of Adam's needs, wanted to know what _he_ wanted and know it intimately. Nigel lowered his hand and took hold of Adam's cock. Stroking with a firm grim, Nigel kissed his master again, already addicted to the taste of his mouth.

Adam kissed back, hard, curling his fingers in the sheets tight enough to tear. He moaned, arched back against Nigel's fingers, bucked forward into his hand. He felt entirely wanton, debauched, _sinful_.

He pulled away from the kiss, a quick had against Nigel's throat, not to hurt him but to hold him still as he freed himself from Nigel's fingers and moved to seek Nigel's cock instead. Adam stroked, just once, before spreading his thighs and levering himself up, over. He guided Nigel against himself, careful to press firm, to relax his own muscles before slowly sinking down against him.

"Fuck," the word felt wrenched from Adam's chest. He moaned, loud enough to carry through the walls for sure, and let Nigel free, bringing his hand to his own throat instead, the other clenched in a fist that rests on Nigel's shoulder.

Nigel felt his breathing stop as he was sheathed inside of Adam. Such a profane word coming from such beautiful lips was a whole other kind of wrong. A wrong that would pull the most pious of men into the depths of sin. 

Nigel was no such pious man.

He drew his nails across ribs once again, sitting up straight to kiss at the bruised throat before him from between Adam's fingers. Nigel trembled as he fought to get his breath back, as Adam began to ride, and agonizing pace. Too slow for either of them. Not enough even as they both quivered from the sensations. 

Adam dropped his hand from his throat and let the fingers of both hands curl into Nigel's hair, holding him tight. The both of them were clinging on to the other as the lazy pace drove them to breathlessness. Adam could move faster. He wanted to. But he also wanted to relish this, to delight in the fact that after _two years_ they finally set their pride aside.

And there was a lot of pride to set aside.

Adam clenched, just a moment, and laughed low when Nigel swore against him. He grinned, teeth sharp, eyes hooded, before pushing Nigel to the bed again, leaning down with him to kiss hard against seeking lips.

Nigel let out a loud moan that Adam swallowed, lifting a hand to cup his cheek. He rolled his body against his master's, pressing his leaking cock between their writhing bodies as his own continued to pulse inside of Adam.

This was ecstasy.

"Adam," Nigel breathed as he broke away for a breath. His face squished up as Adam tightened the muscles around him again. " _Fuck._ What have you done to me? Reducing me to this with hardly any effort." He kissed Adam hungrily between words. "You repulse me," he growled, once against moving to Adam's throat, returning his attention to a bruise not as dark as the other to make it even darker.

Adam hummed, arching his neck like a cat to allow Nigel easier access. He'd wear the bruises with delight, with pride, until they faded. Taunting others who longed to mark him this way. He wished he could carry them longer than one fucking night.

Perhaps all the more reason to tempt Nigel into making more.

Hateful sex really was the best kind there was.

He adjusted their position, just a little, just enough, and the next moan Nigel swallowed was shameless to it's core.

"Show me," he breathed, taking Nigel's bottom lip between his teeth and biting enough to draw blood. "Show me _how much you hate me_."

That was a challenge Nigel was willing to take. With carefully practiced grace, Nigel flipped them so Adam was sprawled against the sheets once more, pinned beneath Nigel's weight as he thrust into him with an animal-like recklessness.

"Thrice-damned whore," Nigel ground out from behind clenched teeth, panting from the strain. He clutched at Adam's throat using as much strength as he could muster to squeeze. "I'd kill you myself if given the chance."

Empty words. Empty threats. But Nigel felt anything but empty as he thrust into Adam, high off of every sound, every keening moan.

Adam wondered if he should pretend to choke, or it it would infuriate Nigel more that he hadn't needed to breathe for the last thousand years. Adam drew his nails sharp over Nigel's back instead, grasped the back of his neck, curled fingers savagely in his hair... He'd be sore after this. Exhausted. He'd send for food for when Nigel woke and get the door without a single shred of clothing on. 

Let them see. Let them ache, wanting and knowing they can't have.

Neither Nigel nor Adam. 

Nigel hissed, his back arching as the pain of Adam's nails breaking his skin mingled with the pleasure racing through him. He could feel himself getting close to climax and snapped his hips forward, pushing as deep as he could into Adam's ass.

Adam whimpered, tilted his head back, lips retracted in pleasure, body singing with it. He dropped a hand back, then the other, and sought the headboard to grasp the spokes between his fingers instead.

"Tell me you need me," Nigel said, his grip loosening on Adam's throat. "I want to hear it."

"I need you," he obediently moaned. He wrapped his legs tightly around Nigel and urged him faster, deeper into him. "I _want_ you."

Nigel responded by increasing his pace, his hands moving to either side of Adam's head as he grunted with the effort. His forehead beaded with sweat and they kissed again, all teeth and tongues and passion. With no regard at all, Nigel pierced his tongue on Adam's fangs, groaning as their mouths filled with the coppery taste of his blood.

That was damn near it for Adam. His mouth filled with the anger, the anguish, the confusion, desire, and passion as his body was filled with a throbbing heat. Overcome entirely by Nigel.

He bucked up, shaking and gasping, and shuddered through orgasm. He clung to Nigel as the other continued to pound into him, close himself, until finally, he stilled. Adam hadn't felt this alive in centuries.

As Nigel himself let go, filing Adam up, his eyes clenched tight and he lost himself in the kiss. The taste. The feeling. His mind was racing with it all and he felt dizzy as he collapsed on top of Adam. He knew his weight wasn't even close to too much, but he shifted anyway, pulling himself from Adam with a shudder before he collapsed next to him. Without even a thought, he wrapped his arms around Adam's form and held him, breathing heavily against his shoulder.

"You're foul," he panted, but didn't relinquish his hold. If anything, he held him tighter.

Adam hummed, stretching his body, drawing elegant fingers over his own skin and memorizing the marks left against him. Eventually, he brought his fingers to Nigel's hair, tugging just gently enough to have him raise his head so Adam could kiss him again. Almost chaste after what they'd just done.

"I know," he said. He nuzzled into Nigel, seeking warmth and weight and the smell of him. 

It took Nigel several long moments before he caught his breath, the wounds along his back stinging but to a degree that he could ignore.

"Do you need more?" Nigel asked. He hated himself for asking even as he did so. His mouth felt full of copper and he ran the puncture on his tongue against the roof of his mouth, toying with it. The more he thought about the blood, the more his nose wrinkled. Still, he found himself catering to his master's wishes whether he liked it or not.

"Not for weeks," Adam answered, honestly. He'd never had a particularly in-depth conversation with Nigel about the feeding practices of ancient vampires, and it hardly mattered. In truth, he could feed on Nigel whenever he damn well wanted to, nut just when he needed to.

He'd never admit it, but the offer was enough to stay his hunger, even if the need was there.

Nigel made a small noise of acknowledgement, silently relieved. He didn't think he had the strength to get through it if Adam _did_ need to feed off of him. Still, he found himself saying, "Weeks seems like a stretch."

"Not when I need only to feed a few times a month," Adam mumbled, rubbing his eyes with his knuckled and smiling as he felt Nigel tense beside him at the information. "I'm old enough that I can hibernate for a decade without a meal, Nigel. I just like to keep myself looking sprightly."

Another bit of information. Another noise of acknowledgement. Nigel didn't know what was making him talk, but he took the hint that Adam wasn't feeling particularly chatty. He made to pull away, but Adam took hold of his wrist.

"No. Not yet."

Adam's voice had barely been above a whisper, but Nigel heard it clear as day, freezing in place for just a moment before shifting closer. He still had no words to say, or even to explain the millions of things running through his head. HE placed an open-mouth kiss at Adam's shoulder, not biting but just lightly grazing the skin with his teeth.

"You look like someone wished to beat you to death from the neck down," Nigel said quietly, a breath of a laugh in his tone.

Adam snorted, "It certainly looks like someone made a right go of it." He sat up just enough to be able to see down his body, bruises blooming on his skin, scratches, marks, bites... With a grin, he dropped back to bed, drawing a hand up to rest behind them both, ducking his fingers to stoke through Nigel's hair.

"Feel better having tried?"

"Perhaps," Nigel replied and then sighed. He hadn't the slightest of ideas of where to go from here. What did a _blood slave_ do when he reached this point? Where he had shared a bed with his Damned master?

Adam hummed, allowing a lazy smile before he gently tugged Nigel's hair and moved to get up from the bed.

"I might feed twice a month, but you, however, need to at least twice a day." He ran his hand over his robe, crumpled and messy beneath Nigel, before changing his mind and offering Nigel a wicked grin.

He left the room bare, and Nigel heard him call for Bodgan a moment later, tone petulant and put-upon. Nigel flushed at the thought of Adam being seen like _that_ and scrambled out of bed. He grabbed hold of Adam's wrinkled - and slightly cum-covered - robe and left the room. It was better than nothing. Nigel wasn't sure what kind of reaction would come about from all the bruises on Adam's throat, and he certainly didn't want to find out lest it be some kind of punishable act by the hands of the coven.

"Adam! You can't just-"

Adam turned to him, eyebrow raised and smile coy, as he leaned against the outer door. Just then, Bogdan came up and froze, staring. Adam didn't bat an eye, didn't move to cover himself, didn't do _anything at all_ except lean nearer and set two fingers beneath the younger vampire's chin to lift it.

"Be a dear and bring some breakfast up for him, would you? Coffee as well."

Nigel went as scarlet as the heavy curtains as he made eye contact with Bodgan. The lesser vampire had seen Nigel naked countless times at this point, but the _implication_ of him being as naked as Adam. And then the marks on top of that... _Christ almighty_...

Bogdan made a sound in his throat that carried to Nigel, and Adam just smiled wider. That sinuous, lethal thing that narrowed his eyes and made Adam look much more dangerous. He set his thumb to Bogdan's lips and gently pushed him away.

"Hurry back."

Without a word, Nigel dropped the robe to the floor and hightailed it back into Adam's bedroom. He needed to have clothes on before Bodgan returned, lest he cause more of a fuss. It was no secret that at least half the coven had been Adam's plaything at one point or another, but Nigel wasn't prepared to face any jealousy that might - literally - tear out his throat once the gossip got around. 

Fuck. Fuck. _Fuck_!

Adam followed at a much more casual pace, hand turned to check his nails as feet hushed against the carpet. He watched, amused, as Nigel tried to dress himself quickly, finding the legs of his pants tangled and cursing as he had to sit down to put them on properly.

"You're not _embarrassed,_ are you?" he asked. "No need to be scared of such a little thing. He can't hurt you."

"Yeah fucking right."

"He can't," Adam repeated with a sharper tone, and the change in emphasis was enough to make his point clear. Attempts may be inevitable. Repeat offences would be impossible.

Nigel let out a frustrated sigh before shooting a half-hearted glare at Adam. "You have put me in a hell of a fucking position," Nigel said before returning his attention to his clothing.

Now decent, Nigel roe, pacing back over to where Adam was, towering over the vampire as he stood in his personal space. "Can't and won't are two very different things. Surely you can understand how little I trust I truly have in your control of things. How am I supposed to continue living safely when the entirety of the house knows I share your bed? If you so much as suggested the _possibility_ of a vacancy, the lot of them would kill each other for the chance at filling it."

Adam raised an eyebrow but didn't move to posture or dominate as Nigel stood so near him.

"That's their problem, it's hardly mine," he said, cooly. It occurred to him that Nigel has not been around to ever see Adam _take control_ of situations within his coven. He hadn't been there the last time someone had broken cardinal rules. He didn't been there when Adam had stood in the middle of the aftermath, hair dripping blood as he adjusted his sleeves and waited for someone else to make the same mistake his victim had. "I hardly put you in this position. _You_ kissed _me_."

"Not the point," Nigel growled. "If I entertain you so God-damned much, _you_ might want to put precautions in place to keep me around."

Adam considered him, eyes narrowed, before drawing his bottom lip between his teeth and releasing it with a brief intake of breath.

"Let me explain this to you as clearly as I can," he said, stepping near enough to set a hand against Nigel's chest. It wasn't a harsh push, wasn't painful, but there was strength there; a warning. "Most mortal who make it into my bed don't stay long enough to leave. Consider it as one would nature. The praying mantis. Once copulation is done, decapitation and blissful silence follows."

Adam stepped nearer still, keeping Nigel where he was with the flat of his palm. "Now consider what it means to them that you did this to me and not only remained _alive_ , but quite deliciously flushed as I sought a meal for you."

Adam curled his hand and fisted the fabric of Nigel's shirt. He pushed up on his toes, close enough for Nigel to kiss him again, and narrowed his eyes. " _Any_ creature so reckless as to take a life so clearly claimed, as to so much as _attempt_ such a feat, will find themselves as all other mortals have after bedding me."

Nigel's cheeks remained flushed and his fingers twitched as they reached for Adam's sides. Before he could lean down for the kiss Adam's eyes dared him to follow through on, there was a knock at the main doors.

Adam slipped free of Nigel's fingers to return to the main rooms. "That would be your meal," he said flippantly although Nigel remained where he was until he was certain Bogdan or anyone else was gone, the door closed firm behind them.


	7. Chapter 7

When Nigel eventually stepped out into the other room, his mouth watered at the smell of all the meats brought up. It seemed such a waste if Nigel was the only one eating, an entire table covered in delicacies, but he wasn't one to complain when it came to food. He sat at the table in his usual spot, filing his plate as his stomach growled.

Adam was at the other end of the table, clothed once more in his dishevelled robe. The air was heavy with silence as Nigel tucked in. Spearing a piece of sausage on his fork, Nigel paused before he took a bite, setting the flatware down.

"Why me?" he asked.

Adam considered the question as he shifted in his chair. He had the option to toy with Nigel, to give some sappy answer claiming Nigel to be some long-lost over finally reincarnated in new form. But he didn't care enough for that sort of answer.

"You made it clear you wouldn't die," Adam said after a long time. "I wanted to see what you would do if I let you live."

Nigel's brow furrowed as he picked his fork back up and ate. He hadn't been expecting much of an answer but maybe a _bit_ more of a reason. It was true he had no intention of dying here. He couldn't die here. Not before seeing Gabi again.

_Gabriella!_

He still remembered how he called out her name as he was snatched away by Adam's coven. It had been the start of nightfall and he hoped she had managed to get away. That Darko was taking care of her even though she was the one who had always taken care of them.

Nigel's stomach rolled at the thought and he put his fork down again to rub his hands over his face. The entire time he had been with Adam he hadn't once thought of his darling Gabriella. That made him feel even more disgraceful than the act itself.

Adam considered him from across the table, drawing a finger over his kiss-plushed lips before pushing to stand.

"I'm well versed in bondage, Nigel. While I've grown old enough now to understand the intricacies of it, I've been bound to places and people before I've not been amenable to." He tilted his head. "You belong to me by contract, but your choices are your own outside of it."

"You keep saying that," Nigel replied, "but somehow I believe it even less than I believe how you also keeping saying you'll have your little family stay away from my jugular."

"Go then," Adam replied with a shrug and a tense jaw. "Prove me wrong."

Nigel tensed. These feelings were ridiculous. Maybe it would have been better to stay in the basement, delirious from blood loss and tormented by the taunts and sneers of the lesser in the coven. At least his _feelings_ weren't a concern. Up here was a different game. A chessboard covered in invisible pieces that would change places every time he tracked one down. This wasn't the kind of game Nigel played.

"Playing poker blind, deaf, and dumb is an easier win than this game of _yours_ ," he said with a sigh. 

"Then let's be done with games," Adam said and returned to his bedroom, the careful click of the door closing more unsettling to Nigel than if he had slammed.

For several nights, they didn't so much stay out of each other's way Adam as was literally just ignoring him. He didn't send Nigel anywhere, didn't force him to return to like the filth and cold of the basement, he didn't stop feeding him... He just pretended he wasn't there.

After the first night, Adam's skin returned to its marble perfection, no marks, no bruises, and he wore his shirts with the collar open as though to remind Nigel that he had no claim on his anymore. Not today at least. Some nights, he left the house before Nigel even saw him.

While Adam ignored him, Nigel went out of his way to be a nuisance. Leaving curtains cracked so Adam would need to close them himself or be stuck in his room if he awoke early. Leaving clothing strewn about the various rooms. But most of all, he was drunk more often than he was not. He had gone through most of the wine on the third floor or the first few days before testing Adam's dare that he leave and when to pass out at taverns until dawn, buying drinks for anyone who so much as smiled at him. It wasn't his fucking gold after all. He didn't fucking care how much he spent.

When he was home, Nigel noticed how Adam moved about him, flaunting himself without acknowledging Nigel at all. It only pushed him to drink more.

The better part of a fortnight passed and Nigel stumbled home from the taverns once again, entering the well well before midnight for a change as he had been out for the better part of a full day's cycle. But something else had changed within the house. Nigel could feel it in the atmosphere, the entire energy having shifted. Drunk as he was, he wasn't stupid.

While the two of them had been so pointedly ignoring each other updates, the coven had started to hum, live bees in a hive in danger. Nigel had sensed it before, certain looks, hissed words, sometimes in Romanian other times in languages Nigel didn't speak. Many, most of whom tended to Adam, remained as indifferent to Nigel as they had been before. But others...

A shadow passed the doorway on Nigel's left and he turned on instinct. Nothing there. Of fucking course. But when he turned back to the stairs, he found a young man there. Nigel hadn't seen him often, he couldn't remember him from the basement - though he remembered little of the slave pits. He looked young, by what Nigel could gauge in Damned terms, skin unusually pink rather than alabaster.

Right then, his brows were furrowed, hands clasped in front of him. "I don't think you belong here," he said.

Using his peripherals, Nigel took stock of what he could use to defend himself in a pinch, his adrenaline sobering him up enough to think. There were hundreds of cast iron candlesticks and candelabras near enough to grab, and if it came down to it, the "decorative" swords above the mantel to the left of the foyer would also come in handy. The impulse to draw a gun was strong, but Nigel hadn't held one since he'd been taken.

"I don't think that is your call to make," Nigel said, equally as hateful as this brat before him. "But why don't we make this interesting and say I don't plan on going anywhere, anyway. What move do you make then?"

"Turn and go," the boy said, clearly trying to call a bluff that Nigel wasn't making. "You'll hardly be missed."

He smiled, the points of his teeth just there beneath his lips. He considered Nigel before taking a step towards him, nothing threatening, just closer. He smiled wider when he noticed Nigel tense.

"I wonder," he said. "Just how hungry with need the master was to take something so pathetic to bed."

Nigel sidestepped to bring him closer to the nearest three-pronged candelabra. "He must have been _starved_ considering the way he cried my name," Nigel smirked. "Do you think he even remembers yours?"

The boy was so close, so quickly, that Nigel didn't even have time to breathe.

"Gods rarely know the names of those who worship them," he hissed. "They needn't bother. My life is his to do with as he sees fit, and I await to be summoned to fulfill his needs. You," he sneered, "who one thought himself so clever, have been outcast. Returned to being nothing more than a sack of blood and bile. I would cleanse this place of you."

Nigel held his place. "How long did it take for him to tire of you? Even standing here, know I'm older than you were when you were turned. I may not know much about the Damned, but I do know they prefer vintages freshly bottled. If you want to challenge me as a man, _not_ a child pretending to be one."

It was strange how sure Nigel felt in his words. This child didn't frighten him even though he should have. This was the exact situation Nigel had brought up to Adam those many nights ago. A sick sense of satisfaction at being right made Nigel smirk. He was pushing it though, and know it, but this brat had gotten in his way of reaching his impromptu weapon of choice. As subtly as he could, Nigel reached over and wrapped his finger in the tassel on the end of the table runner that had a candelabra resting on it.

The next movement was just as quick, but this one _hurt_.

He didn't bite, not quite, but the mark the boy left against him was one Nigel _definitely_ felt, before he managed to yank the runner closer and grab his ill-fitting weapon. He knew he was fucked, if that was all there was. He couldn't exactly beat the boy to death - he was already dead. He needed a knife, a gun, _something_ to actually do damage.

Nigel was agile, though out of practice. He managed to get enough distance between them to land a pleasantly hard whack against the boy. 

He'd told Adam this would happen. He _fucking told him_.

The blow took the vampire aback and gave Nigel the time to bolt. He knew he couldn't outrun his attacker, but he _could_ get a start towards that stupid sword display. He got to the doorway, he could see the mantle, but he was grabbed by his hair and thrown to the floor. Nigel let himself ball up, making sure to keep his grip on the candelabra as he fell. He rolled and was back on his feet, dizzy from the drink in his system but on his feet all the damn same.

Fuck, did he hate vampires.

The brat charged him and Nigel got a swift blow in, timing it just right to catch him beneath his chin and send him sprawling. Nigel ran again, making it to the fireplace. Despite how tall he was, it was a stretch to brush the tips of his fingers against the handle of one of the swords. There was no time to check his back as he jumped to get a loose grip on the hilt.

He was yanked back, the entire display coming down with him. Of course it was all for show, of _course_ it was. Not single swords settled together, they were fucking _welded_. Absolutely fucking useless.

Nigel did notice, absently, that there were two of them now. Wonderful. Now he'd end his sorry stupid life eaten by two idiots who worshipped a man - a damned Damned man - who didn't even care who they fucking were.

No. Not today. Not _fucking_ today.

Nigel hissed as he felt a bite against his skin, at his wrist, and found himself unable to do anything but tug uselessly against the attack. They were strong and Nigel thought quickly. They may have been dead, but Nigel had learned one thing from his sinful night in Adam's bed.

Vampires were still sensitive in the way men were.

Tensing the muscles on his arm, he tugged the vampire feasting on him closer and delivered a swift kick to the groin. Whether it was surprise or pain that keeled over the vampire, Nigel didn't care as he freed his wrist from the fangs that bit into it and got back to his feet. He had torn a deeper gash than just the fang marks, but it wasn't fatal. For now. He was still holding the useless display in his other hand, and swung it as hard as he could manage, knocking back the original brat who dared stop him at the stares.

"You're going to have to try muc-"

Nigel spoke too soon as a third came up from behind, biting into his neck as talon-like fingernails dug into his collarbone. Nigel couldn't stop the groan of pain that escaped him. The fangs in his neck had gone deep and he was forced to his knees. Black spots formed at the edges of Nigel's vision and his rage built. If he died in this house it would be by the hands of someone worthy of killing him. Not these used up dolls.

The struggle continued. Nigel could feel his entire body trying to fight, twitching, twisting, pushing his weight around as much as he could, but he was losing. He felt that same cold horror that had hit him in the basement so many times before.

 _I'm going to die_.

" _What_ is the first rule of my home?" Adam's voice was loud, but it wasn't raised. He spoke as though he stood right near, the tone of a schoolmaster displeased with his students. Nigel wondered if he'd started to die already.

But the teeth left his flesh, hands left his limbs, and with his own body back in his own control, Nigel managed to keep himself from keeling over entirely. Adam stood at the foot of the stairs, hand against the banister, boots polished to a shine, coat pristine. He had an escaped curl above his eyebrow that he seemed not to notice, and Nigel found he couldn't look away.

"Aesthetics above all things," Adam answered his own question, taking the final step off the stairs to walk towards them, "which includes, if you recall, the etiquette of dinner."

Nigel trembled, unable to push himself back to his feet both from strain and awe. He hadn't consciously seen this Adam before, this commanding presence that truly ruled over this estate. The vampires around him, both attackers and bystanders, were rooted to the spot. All save for the brat who had initially called him out.

"This _thing_ ," the child spat, "spits in the face of aesthetics. He should never have been kept alive to defile this place with his human filth."

Adam's eyes narrowed but it was a motion so subtle, Nigel would have missed it were he not to entirely transfixed. The blood that was still in his body dang to be at Adam's side, to be near the master that controlled him just as much - if not more - as the others around him. The blood that ran across his skin from open wounds felt cold against his skin and Nigel fought back a shiver that tickled his spine.

Adam considered the statement a moment, didn't once look at Nigel as he did. Then, he stepped nearer, enough that those nearby immediately stepped aside to make way. The boy stood proud as he stared at Adam, the thing he claimed to worship. And when Adam touched him, it was gentle, surprisingly intimate.

"Sweet thing," Adam murmured, blinking slowly as the boy melted against his touch. He stroked the boy's cheek, thumb moving across his lips, smearing Nigel's blood there. "Putting yourself on the line to maintain the beauty of my house. Come nearer."

The boy did as told and Nigel let out a small growl in protest. The sound earned him some confused looks from the others but no one reacted otherwise, too taken in by Adam's actions. Adam, however, did have the slightest of smirks on his lips.

The boy before him spoke, "I only do it for you, master. Let me rid us of this filth. _Please_." 

Adam hushed him, a soothing and soft sound that brought shivers to most of the coven watching. He drew the boy nearer, tilting his chin up before bringing their lips to meet. You could hear a pin drop in the house. No one breathed. Nigel felt his throat constrict, wanted to protest and couldn't, wanted to move and couldn't, finding himself forced by his own weak body to watch this unfold. 

When Adam pulled back, it was with a soft sigh and a nuzzle against the other boy's face.

"No, love, I'll do it. It is my house, _ours_ , and what is left to fester within destroys us all like rot." He leaned in as though to kiss the boy again, but his fingers turned, pressed, and with a sickening crack, he pulled the boy's jaw entirely free of him.

He considered it, as blood slipped slick between his fingers, before turning his gaze to the other young man before him, stunned into immobility.

"Much obliged, for your diligence in bringing this filth to my attention. Culling, as you know, is sometimes necessary, though unpleasant." He dropped the jaw, still covered in skin, sinew, muscle, and flexed his finger. "You _reek_ of disrespect, and I cannot abide it."

Nigel's eyes went wide, his stomach flipping. His two other attackers, the only ones who cried out in anguish, in ager. Hissing at Adam like a pair of alley cats.

"Murderer!" shouted one, not realizing the hypocrisy in the outcry.

"You value a _human_ over your own and dare call yourself master of this coven?" challenged the other. "You've become no better than the vermin you bed!"

Nigel looked from the severed jaw to Adam, pleading to let him act. Killing vampires was what he did. He used to do it well. If he needed to, he'd cut them limb from limb slowly with the base of the fucking candlestick.

Adam hummed, a low sound, and considered the three before him. The boy he'd broken was swaying now, unable to keep his composure or balance, and Adam caught him with a hand to keep him upright.

"No," he said, speaking softly. "You see, I _came_ from vermin. It's what I know best. I've been crawling through filth to stay alive longer than you've been on this earth." He turned to nuzzle the boy shaking against him, spreading blood along with his own cheek as he did so. "I've been in riches far less than I've been without, and I am _well aware_ of how one earns privilege."

He took the jawless boy's wrist, turning it almost gently in his hand before a tug, a revolting sound, and the limb came off as well, clothing still upon it.

"If anyone is unworthy of their privilege, their _life_ , the _clothes they wear_ ," another limb, just as easily removed, tossed aside, "it is _you_ , my dear thing."

Blood pooled along the floor, so much at once that the rugs didn't soak it up and soon others started to back up to keep it from themselves. No one spoke. No one dared to again. The two watched their friend as Adam systematically tore him apart, nothing but the sound of rending flesh, sickening thunks of wet meat hitting the floor. Over and over, until nothing was left but a mess.

Adam drew his pocket square free and wiped the excess of mess from his fingers before looking to the others.

Still, where he knelt on the floor, the spray of blood splattered across Nigel's face, his clothes. The puddle on the floor sloshing against his knees. The shock of it all was enough to urge him to his feet where he stumbled backwards, using a side table to awkwardly hold himself up. Anyone within reached moved well out of his way, the last thing any of them wanted was to face the consequences of touching Nigel.

"Who I choose for my bed is of no one's concern but the one who has been chosen." He added, almost as an afterthought, "What I choose to allow within my chambers follows the rules established for the rest of you, _and_ as such, is beyond contestation. Do I make myself clear?"

The two rebels still standing seemed to have had their rebellious fires doused, but they remained as they were, also splattered with the blood of their dismembered friend. Despite the nods from the rest of the coven, these two remained silent.

Adam flicked a blood-soaked wrist and Bogdan emerged from the crowd. "You're dismissed. Both of you," he said in that perpetually calm voice. "Should you remain any longer, you will be disposed of."

The two boys hissed again but appeared submissive. It was all Adam needed to turn his back on this mess and clean himself up. Such a waste of good fabric, of good rugs.

" _Adam_!"

The vampire - for once - turned almost too slowly. He was, however, in time to see Nigel rush forward to grab the vampire around the jaw. The man flicked his wrists and the room echoed with the sound of the crack as bone was broken. The creature dropped to the floor in a heap and Nigel stood there panting, soaked in his own blood as well as the other's. 

His heart was racing and Nigel was sure that everyone in the room could hear it, but he paid none of them any mind. His eyes were intense on Adam's. Only Adam's.

"Leave him on the front steps," Adam said, not looking down to the thing at his feet. Very much still alive. Very much incapable of movement without help. "He'll have his chance to find his way should he choose to take it. Else the sun will beat him to it."

Bogdan nodded, happily taking over he clean up. 

Those eyes met Nigel's and, for a moment, time seemed to just freeze. Nothing happened, no sound, no motion, no breath at all. And then Adam stepped nearer, slipping a filthy hand into Nigel's hair to tug him close to kiss.

It was open-mouthed, brutal, and lasted long enough that Nigel gulped for air when he was released, eyes blown wide with adrenaline. His head was spinning and he was fairly sure he was still bleeding. Nigel was scared sober by this point but there was something more. The taste in his mouth a different kind of copper. He couldn't place why it was different. He didn't have the chance.

"With me," Adam said only to him, his hand still in Nigel's hair. Nigel gave a single nod and Adam released him, making for the stairs. 

Nigel was still breathing heavily through his mouth, he took a look around the room but no one would look back at him. He followed Adam without another thought, feeling as though his body was moving twice as fast as his mind could.

"A-adam," he managed to get out, catching up to his master on the stairs.

"No," Adam replied.

Nigel didn't dare try again as they continued up the stairs, as they entered the third-floor apartments they called their own. Even as Nigel followed Adam towards the bath, he said nothing.

Adam turned to him in the tiled room, setting his hands on either side of Nigel's face, eyes meeting his. He could feel the shaking, the confusion, the speed at which Nigel's pulse cantered under his skin.

"Where are you hurt?" he asked, though he didn't wait for an answer as he looked for himself. He peeled back layers of clothing as though they were tissue paper, tearing as easily through fabric here as he had through flesh downstairs. He was covered in gore, and uncaring, curious only to see where Nigel - _his Nigel_ \- was bleeding.

He found one mark. Another. Eyes narrowing in the kind of anger that radiated off him in waves. He bent to set his lips softly against Nigel's wrist, not to suck, but to draw his tongue against the wound over and over again, a painfully intimate thing.

Nigel felt like he was suffering a fever. Things so clear around him, they didn't seem real.

"Adam," he said again, breath hitching at the feeling of Adam's tongue over his wrist. His master stopped a moment, shushing him softly and giving him a small peck before returning to Nigel's wrist.

Nigel placed his other hand on Adam's shoulder, clutching at the fabric of his ruined shirt. His head tipped forward, resting his temple on his knuckles while his nose brushed along Adam's ear. He was trying to ground himself. So much had happened so quickly. He was reeling in several directions and Adam's tongue at his wound wasn't helping him to stay focused.

With a hum of displeasure, Adam leaned back. The wound was too deep, tendons damaged and simply easing the blood flow wasn't going to help. He cursed softly, before shifting Nigel to face him, eyes intent on his.

"Listen to me," he said. "What you're feeling, it's just an inkling of what you're about to feel. All I am asking is for you to trust me." Adam swallowed, drew his fingers against Nigel's temples, "Can you?"

Drawing in a shaky breath Nigel lifted his head and looked at Adam. He wasn't sure. He'd been right about everything that happened when Adam said it wouldn't. He was nearly killed when Adam said he wouldn't. Nigel _couldn't_ trust him.

But he did.

"Yes," he breathed, resting his forehead against Adam's and closing his eyes. "Yes."

Adam hummed his quiet thanks, and drew his tongue against his teeth to break the skin before snaring Nigel in a kiss once more. This time, he fed him the taste, his own blood instead of Nigel giving his. He held Nigel close, refusing to let him pull back when he tried. Adam kissed him until Nigel kissed back, and only then Adam loosed his hold to wrap his arms over Nigel's shoulders instead. He'd been scared. He'd been scared he was too late when he walked through the door and heard the skirmish. He'd been so scared he'd lost Nigel to his own bullheadedness.

 _Vampire blood_.

The moment the taste was in his mouth again, Nigel knew he had already tasted it. Downstairs. It scared him, but Adam wouldn't let him go, wouldn't let him pull away.

So he gave in.

Nigel sucked it all in, his tongue running over the slit in Adam's, agitating it to keep the blood flowing. He wrapped his left arm around Adam's waist, pulling him closer as the other came up to tangle in blood-soaked hair. Nigel could taste the desire, the need, in Adam and it sang loud in his head. Almost deafeningly so. His heartbeat was so rapid he felt it might explode if his breathing didn't stop before that.

Adam pulled back first, setting two patient fingers against Nigel's lips as he tried to lean in again.

"No," he breathed, eyes up to catch Nigel's. "Any more and you'll die of it. I want rather the opposite."

Nigel's eyelids flickered up and down, unable to remain any which way with the adrenaline coursing through him. Again he rested his forehead against Adam's, holding him close as he pressed a kiss between his eyebrows. He feared if he let go he would lose himself to this bliss, hazier than liquor. He had seen whores and rich men alike fell victim to the call of opium and other drugs, had even been at risk a few times himself, but this was so much more enticing than any of those could ever hope to be. So much less stable.

"Don't leave me like this," he whispered.

Adam laughed at that, but not unkindly. "It would be suicide if I did," he said. "You'll think yourself invincible until you heal, causing yourself more harm." He stroked Nigel's hair and offered a smirk. "It's quite unlike anything, isn't it?"

A small smirk tugged at the corners of Nigel's lips and he breathed a small laugh of his own. "No opioid in the world could rival this."

He kept his tongue to himself but brought his hands up to hold Adam's face and kissed him again. There was no way he was going to get any sleep like this, he needed to do something with his hands.

Nigel swallowed, "You didn't..." His voice trailed off with the question he knew Adam would understand. There was so much Nigel didn't understand when it came to the Damned despite having killed dozens alone in the year Adam had brought him here.

For a moment, the boy-like man didn't reply. Long enough that Nigel's breath caught in a hitch before Adam granted him the mercy of an answer.

"You would be so lucky," he muttered, but his tone wasn't so playful as before. He shook his head instead at the thought of turning Nigel with his blood. "You're far too interesting to do that."

He watched Nigel fidget, watched his fingertips tremble with the need to move. His entire begin was singing with this power inside of him. Human beings weren't made to withstand something so strong; it's why it had such an effect on them. In small doses, it sped up the healing process from days to hours, enhanced eyesight, speed, agility. In larger quantities, it overworked the body, beat the heart out of the person's chest. Often enough used, it was addictive.

For a few hours, Nigel would be beyond wired. He'd be manic. He'd feel invincible. Then he would sleep, as Adam did, for the day.

He would later wake again as himself.

"I would hardly call an eternity as one of the Damned, _lucky_."

Adam cocked his head as he, eyes narrowed, and asked, "Will you draw me a bath, or shall I draw you one?"

Nigel trailed kisses along Adam's jawline as he asked the question, absently licking at the tacky blood that coated his face. Realizing what he was doing, Nigel made himself let go of Adam and step back. He felt like he was learning to walk as he moved to the tub and ran the water.

"Shall I...join you?" Nigel asked, as hesitant to stay as he was to leave.

Christ this wasn't him. This clingy mess of energy was the farthest thing from Nigel's true self - at least the self he thought was true - and it was just as frightening as the effects of the blood.

Adam smiled. A fortnight they hadn't properly seen each other. And now, due to Adam's unwarranted confidence in his control, Nigel wasn't himself. He wanted nothing more than to tempt the man to bed again, have him ride out this mania between Adam's thighs and exhaust both of them that way.

But...

"I'd like you to," Adam replied, but then he rephrased himself, "You're _welcome_ to."

Nigel nodded as he returned to Adam's side, peeling his ruined clothing from his skin as he moved. He brushed back Adam's hair back, admiring how he looked, more beautiful than ever.

"I said horrid things to you."

Adam blinked in silent acknowledgement. Words hadn't hurt him in decades. Few people were around now who know what to say to get under his skin. Fewer still who could actually hurt him rather than merely annoy.

"I am a horrid thing," Adam said, turning his head into Nigel's touch. He brought his hands up blindly to start unbuttoning his own coat, as he looked up the length of Nigel's body. Already, he could see the wound at his wrist was no longer bleeding, the bruises on his skin fading away to nothing.

"Monsters tend to come in beautiful packages," Nigel said, speaking from experience. "But you saved me tonight."

A pause as he reached up and ran his thumb over Adam's lips.

"I told you they would come for me."

"One is clearly never too old to be humbled," Adam sighed, taking Nigel's fingertip between his lips to suck softly. He shouldered off his coat and let it drop to the floor, smiling as Nigel moved to work the laces of his shirt for him.

"Will you believe me now that they won't try again?"

"Yes," Nigel said, his fingers moving deftly.

He could smell Adam, a scent he hadn't been able to pick up on before. It was sweet like a summer wine he wished he could taste.

Nigel also realized then just how different it was to have Adam's fangs in his throat from the others. How the three attackers had reduced Nigel to what he used to be in the blink of an eye. It had been horrifying to the extreme. He never wanted to feel like that again, swearing to himself that he wouldn't.

"I miss the marks on you," Nigel said softly, his thumb slipping from Adam's mouth down the curve of his throat. 

"Make some more," Adam invited, the tone teasing, amused. He slipped the shirt from his shoulders next and dropped that to the floor, too. Besides his face, his hands, Adam had remained pristine. He kept his eyes on Nigel as he worked his pants open and loose, before looking away to bend and remove his boots first.

"You also saved me, this evening," Adam added, standing up, bare now, as Nigel was. "There could have been a whole lot more damage to the house. Thank you."

He grinned, stepping closer, setting a hand against Nigel's hammering heart. "You are _very_ good at what you do."

Nigel's face flushed and he placed a hand of his own over the one Adam held against his chest, holding it in place. "I had to," he murmured. And he was being honest. There was something in their bond he didn't understand but was drawn to all the same. Something more than just obeying commands.

"I lost count of how many of your kind I've killed," Nigel said. "I wouldn't be standing here if I wasn't good at what I do. Or maybe I would be, but under different circumstances."

Adam's nose wrinkled in delight. He didn't argue the point.

A moment more and he reached to turn the water off. He ducked away from a laugh as Nigel tried to kiss his bloodied cheek. 

"Dead blood will make you ill," he chastened, gently slapping against Nigel's own face. "And look at how well you've healed already."

Nigel moved in a way that he wouldn't break the eye contact between them. But at Adam's words he looked at himself, touching where he'd been bitten at the curve of his shoulder and then...

"Your marks have healed," he said, voice so quiet he wasn't even sure if the thought had been spoken aloud at all. A sense of anxiety itched at him then. He hadn't realized that toying with the little scabs at his neck had become something of a comfort. He shook his head, trying to clear that energy away, to send those thoughts back to the dark corner they crawled out of.

Adam hummed, tugging Nigel close again and guiding him to step into the bath first. He followed, settling back-to-check against Nigel, arching his neck to have his head against Nigel's strong shoulder.

He would make new marks. He knew Nigel knew it. There was a warmth, a comfort in knowing that he wanted them there. Adam didn't reach to touch Nigel, he just let Nigel touch him. He could still feel his skittering pulse, his need to move, his need to _do_. Adam did reach for a cloth, dropping it the water to soak before bringing it to his chest to start to wash away the smears of blood his clothes had left.

Nigel's arms wrapped around Adam, his nose nuzzling into his neck. He took Adam's warning for dead blood and kept his mouth to himself. Instead, he reached for the cloth Adam was using to see to his body himself. The blood came away without much fuss given the heat of the water, but it wasn't long before their tub was red and their hair still crusted with gore.

"I wasn't expecting so much," Nigel said in regards to the water's colour. "This is a bigger mess than the one I left behind."

Adam laughed, "It's harder to kill us, as you know, if you haven't a weapon. IT's regrettable, really. I rather liked that rug."

Another laugh and Adam wriggled comfortably against Nigel behind him. For a moment more, he didn't move. When he did, he stretched to the other side of the tub to get a jug, ignoring the displeased noise from Nigel.

"You're a mess," he mumbled fondly, filling the jug and gesturing for Nigel to bow his head so he could wash his hair. 

"It was hardly my fault that I didn't have any more to use than a fucking candelabra," Nigel grumbled as Adam left his embrace.

"Can't take you anywhere," Adam said as he poured bathwater over his Nigel's head, none so gracefully, and drew a slew of curses in Nigel's mother tongue.

"You wouldn't know. In the several months since I've been cut free of the basement, _you_ haven't taken _me_ anywhere."

Adam poured more water over Nigel's head, "Why take you out when you seem so fond of taking yourself out?"

Nigel glared.

Adam drew a hand through Nigel's hair to get it out of his eyes and squeeze free excess water. He kept the grip gentle and watched him.

"Would you like me to take you somewhere?" Adam asked, earnest, though he was smiling in amusement. "Beyond the house. Beyond my _bed_. Whereabout shall I take you?"

Nigel didn't answer, instead leaning forward to kiss Adam, but the grip in his hair tightened. Nigel knew it wouldn't relax again until he offered something.

"Why does the where matter?" he shrugged. "Let's paint the town fucking red."

Adam grinned, bright and pleased as he let go of Nigel's hair. "Perhaps we will," he said. He sat back, filling the jug again before offering it to Nigel. He kept his eyes on Nigel's until he ducked his head to wait for the water to be poured over him.

Nigel hesitated with the water, the submissiveness of the bow poking at him, but he suppressed his building urges and poured the water over Adam's hair. Setting the empty bucket aside he carefully ran his hands through those luscious curls, working the clotted blood and the knots free with care and focus.

"It was a turn of phrase," Nigel said. "I don't think I could stand by and watch you butcher half of Bucharest to fulfil your need for _paint_."

"But you could still have the other half," Adam argued, the smile clear in his voice.

"And what would I do with my half of the city?" Nigel asked, as he continued to play with Adam's hair.

Adam leaned into the fingers against him, arched his back and sat closer with a sigh, too distracted to respond. It was lovely to be touched. It was lovely to be touched by someone who wanted to touch him as much as Adam wanted to be touched.

When he felt the water wash over him again, Adam moved even closer, pressing their lips together as their hair dripped over their faces.

Cupping Adam's cheeks in both hands, Nigel held his face close even as they parted to breathe. He leaned back against the wall of the tub and pulled Adam nearer. They kissed again like that, chaste and lazy until the water cooled and Nigel began to shiver.

"You'll catch a cold like this." Adam clicked his tongue in disapproval. "I don't want to sit in filthy water any longer as it is."

Nigel smirked, releasing his hold on the vampire and climbing out of the bath. His skin broke out in gooseflesh before Adam handed him a towel to dry off with.

It was getting on to morning; the night's proceedings had felt like they'd taken only moments, but Adam could feel his being growing heavier, his concentration failing. He knew Nigel would feel no such thing, he would move and do and wonder until the sun rose and he found himself unconscious on the floor, entirely beyond his control one way or the other.

"Sleep with me," Adam told him, grinning at the flush in Nigel's cheeks. "Truly sleep, Nigel. Sleep the day with me."

Nigel's towel dropped as he moved in close and kissed Adam again, his words brushing his lips before they met, "As you wish."

Adam led him back towards his bedroom. Nigel was certain that the room hadn't changed, but once he was through the door, he could see it so much clearer now. There were patterns on the curtains, minute changes in colour as they weaved over the fabric. There were different textures as well, silk and velvet, cotton and wool, A fur lay at the foot of the bed, gently bunched from when Adam had last slept and it looked like the softest thing in the world.

Adam took his hand, pulling him to bed, and crawled in first. "You'll feel invincible, until you aren't," he said. "Believe me when I tell you, it is better to be impatient in here than out there."

Like a dog or a young child, Nigel followed Adam under the sheets. A chill ran through him again and he shivered, squirming deeper beneath the sheets next to Adam. He felt too hypnotized by the colours, the textures, to be impatient. Besides, he didn't think he could handle being away from Adam's side like this.

"What happens if vampires feed from each other?" he asked, seeking Adam's hand beneath the covers.

"Much the same as what happens when we feed on mortals," Adam said, drawing their hands together, palm to palm, and slotting their fingers together. "We don't feel its effects as you do, now, since we live with them on the norm. On occasion, though, if it's an elder, or someone powered, we may get an inkling of what you're experiencing."

"Hmm."

Adam grinned, looking at Nigel. "Had you taken it from another, you may not be quite so overwhelmed as you are now."

Nigel shifted closer, drawn to Adam in many ways in his current state. "I wouldn't have accepted it from one of the others. Any of them."

Adam preened, eyes closing and legs shifting beneath the sheets. Nigel's heart was still beating faster than ever, but Nigel's eyes grew heavy, his mind feeling stuck in molasses even as it raced to see _everything_ around him in the canopied bed.

Adam wrapped his limbs around Nigel, bringing him closer, burying his face against his neck. He nosed the place he usually bit Nigel, where now there was nothing but smooth tanned skin. He drew his tongue very lightly over the spot, a reminder, a claim.

"And so, you'll be mine," Adam told him, as much in jest as in seriousness. No one would touch him again. Not while Adam was around to stop them.

"Yours," Nigel whispered as he held Adam to his chest.


	8. Chapter 8

On the other side of the city, Bénédicte had received word of some issues while listening in on a private meeting Sven was having. It was times like these she was grateful for the almost instantaneous flow of gossip amongst the Damned of Bucharest. It gave her a chance to prepare for the worst. She hadn't all the details just yet, but she was certain of one thing: someone had fucked up in Adam's court last night.

The carriage clattered along the cobblestone, moving aggravatingly slowly for Béné's tastes, but it was the best she had at her disposal. While she sat on the velveteen cushions of the interior bench, clothed in garb fit for an English fox hunt, a bag sat next to her along with her trusty silver dagger, always sharpened to a deadly sharpness. The thick sheath combined with the leather gloves she wore while handling it would keep the precious metal from singeing her skin. She would have ridden a horse of her own but given all she had with her, it wasn't practical. It paid to be prepared. Even if she didn't exactly _like_ Adam, she still found him amusing and wouldn't want anything too bad to happen to him. Their closeness in age only added to the things they had in common and few people truly had _anything_ in common with the girl.

Although it was the hideously annoying parts of Adam that had Béné prepared this way, ready to fight her way home if she had to.

The driver came upon the manor and the girl slipped from the carriage and into the house without a problem. Though it _had_ been a lifetime ago since she had been on Adam's grounds, she noted that a lot had changed. The rugs especially.

"Mademoiselle de la Courtier," Bogdan greeted as she stood taking in the foyer. "What a lovely surprise."

The girl raised a golden eyebrow at the greeting. "I heard there was trouble. I came to assess the damage." She looked around again, brow furrowed. "What became of Adam?"

"Perhaps you should ask him yourself, Mademoiselle."

Béné relaxed slightly, glad that her moronic cohort wasn't so gravely injured that she'd be turned away.

"You'll find his quarters on the-"

" _Sacré bleu,_ " Béné sighed, already exasperated with this place. "I know where the bastard lurks. I'll find him myself."

Bogdan nodded, leaving Béné to climb the stairs on her own. She had left her bag at the base of the stairs, the servants would know to put it away, but her hand was firm on the hilt of her dagger.

She didn't knock when she reached the third floor. She didn't need to. If Adam was around and indecent, well, she'd seen him worse. And if he wasn't around then he wouldn't have answered her knock anyway. She pushed through the double doors, letting herself inside. The curtains were still drawn and the table was bare safe for a single cup, half-filled with coffee gone cold.

That mortal was still here, then.

Well, he had made something of an appearance in the speculations she'd hear, but she hadn't been paying attention to any of the details. She marched through the flat, finding what she vaguely remembered was Adam's room and pushed the door open.

Right. There it was. A four-poster quite like her own, but less feminine; darker colours and heavier fabrics and _none_ of the elegance of her bed. Béné hummed and approached the side closest to the door and yanked back the curtain.

"Adam-"

The body in the bed wasn't Adam. Well... The body nearest her wasn't Adam.

Béné cleared her throat, arms crossed over he chest, and Nigel's brow furrowed ever so slightly as he stirred. It took him a moment to open his eyes but when he did...

He let out a stream of curses as a child - a _female_ child - watched him from the side of the bed. He sat up, tugging the sheets with him to keep himself as covered as possible. Next to him, Adam made a noise of displeasure before he, too, sat up.

" _What_ ," he began in annoyance, "are you shouting about?" He opened his eyes, and upon seeing the child standing there rolling her eyes, broke out in a smile.

"Please tell your pet to calm down, Adam.," Béné groaned. "I haven't the time to deal with it."

Nigel looked between the two, still confused, still embarrassed. "You _know_ this child?" He looked to the girl, "This is no place for a child. I don't know what you've been told, but this place isn't safe."

"Darling, she's just barely younger than I am," Adam said, rubbing at his eyes.

"But she looks-"

Adam hummed, a gentle warning, before bringing a hand to Nigel's hair and tugging softly. Béné raised and set her hands on her hips, watching the two of them. She tapped her foot and looked over Nigel as well as Adam.

"You know I was hoping you'd died."

"Came to celebrate if I had?" Adam grinned. "I know I told you that you would get my clothes when I die, lovely, but I still don't believe you'll ever truly grow into them."

Béné's eyes narrowed as she crossed her arms over your chest. "Your death could still be arranged, you know."

Adam only shrugged, draping himself over Nigel. "Be a good girl and go have a seat in the parlour. I'm sure you're _dying_ for some gory details."

Another eye roll. "Put your damn clothes on. Both of you. This is hardly the way to receive guests."

Nigel remained silent as the child left the room, not bothering to close the door behind her. "She's...she's one of you?"

"Naturally."

"But she's a child."

"I would not call Bénédicte a _child_ , lest she really have a go at ripping my head off. It's what she does best, after all."

"Reassuring," Nigel muttered as he made to get out of bed, wondering what he could wear when all of his clothes were in his own room, but Adam stopped him by crawling into his lap and kissed him.

"You needn't be afraid of her. More of a nuisance than anything else. Although I don't recommend we keep her waiting."

Adam had dressed in his usual English clothing and had given one of his kimonos to Nigel. His senses had returned to normal but Nigel still marvelled at how soft the fabric was against his skin. However, it was hard to feel menacing or defiant in a kimono and Nigel felt that he needed to fill at least one of those positions as they joined Béné in the sitting room.

The girl beckoned Nigel towards her with an outstretched hand and Adam she'd him forward to take it. Like someone meeting the Queen, he bowed his head to brush his chapped lips against the skin of her knuckles.

"Bénédicte de la Courtier," she said as Nigel stood straight. "It is nice to meet a pet with some manners."

Nigel bristled even as he heard Adam breathe a laugh behind him.

"Don't be unkind," Adam said, brushing past the both of them to swing open the door to call down to Bogdan.

Béné got comfortable in the chair, tucking her feet up beneath her - much in the same way Adam did, Nigel noticed.

Coming back, Adam said, "Nigel is much more than that of a pet." He sat down lazily on the sofa. "Now, tell me, what horrors have been mangled through the grapevine of our fine society? What are they saying I did?"

"Someone or another said you had a mutiny on your hands due to your _human,_ " the girl said, nose wrinkling in disgust at the last word, "but it was noted that the mutiny was not his doing. Sven was rather upset about the whole thing. Although he was never one for keeping pets long. You know as well as I do how he feels about bedding the living."

Nigel opened his mouth to protest several times, but found he didn't have the words to do so, simply standing there like a fool.

"Close your mouth, you look like a fish," Béné said flatly. "Although maybe that's why Adam keeps you around."

"Philistine," Adam sighed, referring - Nigel hoped - to this Sven guy. He made a small gesture, calling Nigel to sit beside him, which he did.

Before anyone could say more, Bogdan entered, carrying the usual delicious tray of fresh-cooked breakfast foods and a pot of coffee. Adam caught him before he could leave and pressed a kiss to the inside of his wrist in quiet thanks to his valet.

"I'm glad it hasn't been fully blown out of proportion, then," Adam said. "A few of the younger boys decided it was their duty to dictate my choices. I simply took a leaf out of your book and sadly had to replace several of the rugs as a result."

Adam stretched in his seat, sinking lower into it, deliberately leaning against Nigel as he grinned at Béné, "Then this lovely thing saved me a great deal of trouble by turning another's head off his shoulders. We left him outside to take the air. Did you see any sign him?"

"I'm aware that Bogdan doesn't keep a filthy house."

"No, he doesn't, does he," Adam smiled.

"What of the others?"

"The third? Who knows. Off to Sven I suppose given how it's taken only twelve hours for you to arrive in my home."

"I have no information on that," Béné said, wrinkling her nose at the thought, "but I hope not. Although, even if your rebellious brood _did_ come running, I should think Sven would be too proud to take in your scraps. I do assume you had the sense to dismiss them before you tore them apart."

"Do many vampires move between nests?" Nigel asked, genuinely curious. He had moved his arm over the back of the sofa, fingertips brushing along Adam's shoulders.

Bénédicte flashed him a glance he couldn't quite identify, just could tell it was judgemental. "Nests?" she hissed. "What a demeaning term to use. We may be predators, but we are far from animals."

"And humans are far from house pets," Nigel countered. "Especially the ones who know how to hunt."

That caught Béné's attention and the girl stood. "A hunter? Adam, you can't be serious. Bedding a human is one thing, but a _hunter_?" The girl let out a stream of curses Nigel recognized a French, or maybe Latin.

"But look how handsome he is," Adam countered, matching her tone. "Sweet, you know me. I rarely keep a consistent partner in my bed. He's a wonderful exception." There was a hint of pride there, warm and genuine, and Adam shifted to lean forward and drape his hands over his knees. "Two years this lovely wallowed in the pits of my basement. _Two years_. Yes, for targeting me and my own, but life's too short to hold a grudge against the useful."

Nigel was surprised to find he wasn't as embarrassed by Adam talk about him this way as he had been when Bogdan found them post-coital. It was a strangeness he would allow himself to ponder later. When there wasn't a child sitting in front of him.

Adam turned over his shoulder to look back at Nigel. "To answer your question, rarely. Covens are rather protective of their own. If one is excommunicated, they may try to seek mercy from another master but it's a black mark upon the one who takes them in. Circumstances change situations, however."

Nigel met Adam's eyes and he nodded, making notes in his head as he learned more about the way politics worked within the Damned. A small smile on his lips, Nigel wouldn't help himself as he kissed Adam in thanks.

Béné made a gagging noise.

"Don't be bitter, dear," Adam grinned. "Blame the bastard who turned you before you could ever experience this."

He considered Béné a moment before he turned back to Nigel, "Bogdan must have come and gone as we were chatting. Go eat." Nigel nodded and got up while Adam continued to speak to Béné, "You'll forgive me if I don't offer you a drink. My dear hunter still needs to replenish his strength after spending his day recovering. Even if he had some help in the process, I'd not risk it."

"If I was hungry, I'd have made that clear," she said, watching Nigel out of the corner of her eye. She was curious about the mortal ingesting vampire blood, but kept that to herself.

Adam stood and approached her, sitting on the arm of the chair, arms crossed over his chest. "Did you really just come for a visit, Benny, or has all hell broken loose over there?"

As much as Adam loved poking the bear, knowing full well Béné was more than capable of killing him as slowly as she wanted, but he saw the relief in her face when she found him in one piece. 

"I-"

The doors opened, cutting off Béné's answer as Bogdan came through the door. He shifted uncomfortably and the sight put Adam on edge.

"Sorry to interrupt," he said, "but there's been a summons from Sven."

Béné looked at Adam, "Does that answer your question?"

Nigel stood from his place at the table. He didn't know who this Sven person was everyone was talking about, but the reaction to Bogdan's message was starting to give him an idea. "I'll get dressed," he said.

"You're not-" The answers _going_ and _dressing_ mangled together as they collided, the two vampires watching Nigel turning to glare at each other. 

"I'll get dressed," he said again and Adam offered him a gentle nod before he thanked Bogdan.

"Benny, how fucked am I?"

The girl waited until Nigel's bedroom door was closed, eyes lingering on it as she spoke. "This does not look good, _ma chérie,"_ she said quietly. "But this will only be about your mutinous little spawn, not about the territorial dispute."

Adam had the decency to look confused.

"Don't be coy. I know that attack last month was your doing. Do not lie to me. Not when you've admitted you're keeping a trained hunter in the next room."

They were both silent a moment before Bénédicte sighed and slipped from the chair onto her feet and looked at Adam.

"I will keep our conversation to myself, Adam, but you need to be more careful if you wish to keep that pretty head of yours attached to the rest of you." Another sigh as she turned her attention back to the bedroom door. "It would also do you well if you _tried_ to understand your good fortune in being able to share a bed with someone."

Adam ducked his eyes, chastened by her words. He slid from his place on the chair's arm and knelt before her, taking her hand and pressing a kiss to her gloved knuckles.

"Do you want to leave before we do? Would hardly do you well for you to show up with the enemy."

Béné shook her head as she took her hand back. "I'm sure Sven is already aware of my presence here. It would not surprise me if he would have sent the summons along with him had I not left before he rose."

"As you wish," Adam said, standing.

Béné lifted her chin. "I won't ride with your carriage as I arrived in my own, but I will sit up top with your driver."

Nigel came back into the room, clothed in the English attire he disliked so much along with a long, dark coat he often wore while hunting for Adam. The only weapon he had on him was a knife, regular instead of silver, but it would do in a pinch should the need arise.

"Why not just take the horses as they are?" Nigel asked and then added with a hint of mockery, "Or is a carriage a part of custom for vampire summons?" In truth, Nigel wasn't entirely sure if Adam even _had_ horses of his own outside of the ones that drew the carriage. Not that he had ever asked. When he went out, Nigel just walked.

"I suppose we could do that," Adam said, considering the proposal. He hadn't ridden in a while but was more than capable. 

"Horses, then," Nigel nodded. He looked at Béné who suddenly seemed keen on looking anywhere but back at him. "Um... after you?"

"You're damn well right," she said, turning on her heel and marching out of the apartments.

"Did... I didn't offend her somehow, did I?" Nigel asked Adam. "I'm not staying here but I'd like to know if I'm about to be fed upon by strangers."

Adam grinned, shaking his head. He watched Béné leave before turning to Nigel, setting a hand against his neck. "This is her in a good mood. You did admirably, considering her penchant for breaking people down." He pushed up on his toes and kissed Nigel chastely, though he lingered to smile against him.

Nigel wrapped an arm around Adam's waist, his free hand pushing back Adam's curls from his forehead. "You didn't answer the other half of my question."

"No strangers," Adam said. "Just me. Later."

"You'd best be right," he said, kissing him once more before letting go. "But as you said before, we shouldn't keep the girl waiting."

Béné was already atop her horse by the time they made it downstairs to saddle theirs. Nigel found, to his amusement, that Adam was quite capable of both caring for the horses as well as riding them. The animals responded calmly to him, not as they would to a stranger. He murmured to his mare in another language, soft and lilting, and scratched against her nose.

When he mounted, he became absolutely regal, posture and costume and expression of a princeling. He gazed at Nigel as he prepared his own horse and mounted, lifting his chin before turning towards Béné to lead the way. When they moved off, Adam rode closer, leaning towards Nigel to murmur so advice.

"Sven will ask you about yourself. It would be prudent to pretend the wounds you sustained the other night never existed to begin with. Else I'll find more than a few marks on me that won't be your work."

Nigel swallowed and nodded, trying not to think too closely on the image of Adam being fed upon. "He'll know I'm human," he said. "Won't that in itself be a problem?"

"It will be _his_ problem," Adam said, sitting straight again, keeping their horses parallel as they kept pace with Béné ahead of them. "There are universal rules, Nigel, when it comes to etiquette regarding... mortals." He quirked a smile. "Any human brought as a guest is under the protection of the one who brought them. Should harm come to that human..." He shrugged, leaving Nigel to guess the consequences himself.

Nigel hummed in his throat, facing forward and riding tall. "Your kind are overly complicated."

Adam smiled at that. "Perhaps. But we have more concrete levels than you mortals."

In front them Béné turned in her saddle to ensure they were following. "You two had better be getting your stories straight for Sven. You know how he enjoys poking holes in things, Adam."

Adam sighed but didn't argue. He would have to come up with something, since Nigel was _here_ , now. Coming. Hell, Sven would smell him and just _know_.

"I suppose self-defence won't suffice?" Nigel asked him, and Adam snorted.

"Not for you," he said. "Had I made the mess, and not by proxy, then maybe." He sighed, drawing a hand over his face. He wanted this to be over. He wished there was a way to pay Sven off enough to get him to shut up and go away for a few hundred years.

"Perhaps I'll just tell him the truth," Adam said after a moment, smiling at Nigel. "I sent a trusted associate to sort out some business for me."

Nigel frowned. "So you think this is about that...mess?" He wasn't sure who might be listening in, although Nigel felt confident that Bénédicte already knew what they had done. "Your friend seemed more concerned with the vampire who ran off."

Adam hummed, shook his head. "Too recent, I think. Sven has been after my ass for that night for weeks now. Where do you think I go every night?" He grinned. " _Almost_ every night."

Nigel shrugged, a small grin on his face. "I hadn't given a thought as of late other than to note where you weren't." He paused and looked over at Adam. "In seriousness though, I saw how you tensed at the summons. Are you worried?"

Adam swallowed thickly and nodded. "I dislike conflict," he admitted, amused. "I dislike conflict over territory that is centuries owned and hard-won. I dislike upstarts in my chosen home."

"Who owned the territory?"

"Sven. In a sense."

Nigel gave a curt nod. "So you should have expected this then."

Adam chewed on his lip and shrugged. "It was a necessary action. I can't blame him for being put out. I may be the same way had I lost six."

Nigel felt more confused than he was before, but didn't ask any further questions. He had learned more about vampires in the last day than he had in all his years of hunting them down. Asking more questions new might lead to some... humanizing... answers he didn't want. It was for the better as they came upon Sven's estate. The trio dismounted and followed Bénédicte towards the manor, leaving their horses with the stable hands.

Instantly Nigel was filled with dread. He didn't like this.

"Behave yourselves," the girl said to both of them. "You might have no qualms ruining _your_ rugs, but I am rather partial to the ones we have here. I won't have them defiled."

" _Oui, m'mselle_ ," Adam murmured, winking at Nigel as they walked.

Inside, it was similar to Adam's home but with more gold. Everywhere. Gaudy colours and statues of gratuitously nude women. Unlike Adam's home, as well, there were both women and med in residence. Some of the women eyed Nigel, coy and beautiful and lethal. None looked at Adam; he hardly cared.

Béné no longer paid them any heed either, going about her way in the house where she needed to go. The summons had not come for her. It was not her problem.

The way the male vampires looked at him made Nigel uncomfortable despite his apparent two-way leanings. The women, beautiful beyond Nigel's imagination, even more so as they watched him with a predatory attentiveness that made Nigel's fingers twitch for the knife in his coat. Or Adam's hand. It wasn't that he was afraid - far from, really - but that he had grown accustomed to being somewhat claimed, and therefore safe. These new beasts clearly sought to challenge that claim.

"I assume you know where we're going?" Nigel breathed, voice hardly even a whisper.

"Certainly," Adam replied.

Down a hall, up the stairs, down another hall and to the left - no one like Bogdan here, apparently, to guide them. They stopped at a door and ADam caught his hand in Nigel's coat to pull him near.

"Be good," he whispered, grinning, before kissing Nigel softly. 

Adam pulled away before Nigel could kiss back and it left him wanting. But the warning was clear. He was the kept help, not a lover. And he was especially _not_ a hunter.

After Adam knocked twice on the door, there was a pause before the call to enter came from within and Adam pushed open the door. It was clearly an office, an enormous oak desk, wide windows behind it with curtains open to the night. The man sitting at the desk was well-built, taller than Adam and perhaps even more so than Nigel. How old he was, was questionable, but the age he died looked to have been late 30s. He had light eyes so blue they seemed to glow in an otherworldly way and light hair though a his beard was darker.

Nigel looked the vampire up and down, not exactly impressed. Granted Adam was the only "high born" vampire, so to speak, that he had ever truly met but he still expected more. Maybe because where Adam was soft and beautiful, this Sven was harder, sharper, certainly more rugged. In short, not Nigel's type.

"Sven," Adam said, inclining his head instead of bowing.

"Adam," he replied curtly, eyes slipping to Nigel beside him. "And dog."

Nigel bristled at the insult but bit down on his tongue to keep from snapping back. This was Adam's domain. He was just here for the ride. Remembering something of his manners and how Bénédicte had introduced herself to him, Nigel offered a curt bow, shallow but respectful. It wouldn't do to be disrespectful when the consequences would hurt Adam as well.

Sven considered him and looked back to Adam without giving Nigel much more than a blink in acknowledgement.  "My children tell me there was unrest in your home."

"There was," Adam admitted. "Now we all rest easy. I had to clean up some filth my _children_ left lying around. You understand."

He smiled wanly and sat in the only other chair available before the desk, beckoning Nigel closer with a gentle flick of his wrist. It would seem demeaning if it wasn't very clear that Nigel was out of bounds here.

"Did you worry for me? I didn't think you were the type."

Sven folded his fingers before him, setting his sharp chin atop them. "We have matters unfinished. It would not do well for me were you suddenly... not in the picture."

Nigel kept his face stern, resting his hand on the back of Adam's chair possessively. Nope. He did _not_ like this creature. Even this office felt wrong. Tilted somehow. Like it was trying far too hard to be a regular man's office. There was even a tumbler of what appeared to be whiskey sitting off on a side table near the window. Poor place for whiskey, but who knew what was truly held in the crystal.

"Why summon me now, then? Surely you are aware of the unrest a matter such as this brings. I'm far too busy for niceties."

Nigel wanted to smirk but kept his face as still and neutral as possible. Adam was as rebellious as he was it would seem.

"Because you owe me _blood_ , Adam. You owe me blood for the blood you took from my line."

"It hardly matters since we don't exactly reproduce the natural way."

"You play so coy, stupid boy, but you know the rules as well as I do. I will take what is owed if it isn't given."

Adam shifted, setting his heel against the opposite knee.

"I've recently culled two from my coven. A third walks dismissed among the city. Through sheer maddening luck, you find yourself half repaid already."

"So you admit it was you."

"I have done that already, Sven. Your nest was in the way."

"Then what of the rest?" Sven asked. "Your _proxy_ for the act? What of him?"

Nigel couldn't help but tense, his grip on the back of Adam's chair far from relaxed. He had to remind himself to breathe.  Adam didn't respond right away. No quick wit. No sarcasm. It was putting Nigel under stress as he kept his eyes firm on Sven, not daring to look at Adam lest he give anything away in the glance.

Out in the hall, tucked in as close to the door jam as possible, Bénédicte was anxious. She had changed and pulled her hair into a tight plait lest her curls peek around the corner before her presence was properly required. She chewed at her fingertip through the lace of her glove nervously. Sven was angrier than she expected and she had no intention of losing Adam. They weren't friends to her, but he was one of the few who admittedly saw her as she was meant to be rather than how she looked.

This meeting wasn't good. For anyone.

"What makes you think I kept the proxy alive?" Adam said after a while, bringing a hand to his mouth to rub gently at his lips. "Mortals are a dime a dozen, Sven. Easily coerced and easier still to remove."

"I don't _trust_ you, Adam," Sven said. "You and your pretty words, your pretty clothes, your pretty _boys_." He sat back in his own seat, setting his hands against his belly. "I don't _trust_ that you haven't kept it alive somewhere for later use."

"What is trust between monsters?" Nigel said before he could think it through.

Adam tensed in the chair, visibly. His entire body went rigid and Nigel wasn't sure if it was from irritation or anger. He'd rarely seen Adam that way, if ever.

Sven seemed to take the statement into consideration. After a moment he sat forward again.

"Bénédicte," he called. Adam tensed further. The door opened behind them and the girl who had accompanied them here stepped in, changed into new clothes, but just as fragile looked, just as little. "How do you prove trust?"

Nigel kept his hand on the chair but turned to watch the girl. She laced her gloved hands in front of her, face stoic as she answered, "Give reason not to distrust."

A seemingly simple answer but there was menace underneath that caused gooseflesh to break out over Nigel's skin. The air in the room felt colder all of a sudden and Nigel turned back to Sven.

He was watching Adam, letting his eyes run over his form folded in the chair, feigning casual. Sven was relishing in the tension, the worry, then he turned his cold eyes to the girl again.

"And where is trust truest but in family? In blood?" Sven asked her. It was only then he looked at Nigel, laughter in his eyes that he didn't voice. A taunt. _Gratitude_ for the suggestion he'd made.

"In bonds forged through it," Béné replied quietly.

"Precisely." Sven smiled and it looked like a gash on his face. "A forging of bonds. A coming together of souls, as brothers, as more."

"The blood of the coven is thicker than the waters of the womb," Nigel breathed, the witches' bond prayer running through his mind. He'd thought it superstition until this moment. A Devil-formed way of saying friendships could surpass even familial ties. Never did he think it could apply to something like this...

Sven was out for blood. Adam's specifically.

Béné saw the tension, the _fear_ , ripple through Nigel and stepped forward. Close enough to touch but she didn't dare. Not yet.

Sven smiled as he heard Nigel's words. "It would seem the dog has brains," he said, fangs flashing. "And it would also seem that you have a choice to make here."

Adam ran a fingertip over and over his lips, glaring at Sven, feeling his words echo with the anger and humiliation this would bring. He set his boots on the floor and his lip twitched just enough to reveal a fang tip. 

"So what's it to be, Adam?"

Adam said nothing as he stood, bringing a hand up to work his cravat loose. He twisted the fabric in his hands before handing it to Nigel without a glance. Nigel took the silk with a shaking hand, mouth open to protest but Béné had taken ahold of his free hand, pulling him away from Adam if only by just a half-step. He looked down at her and she gave a barely noticeable shake of her head. He could see in her eyes - far too old and knowing to be in such a young face - that she wasn't happy about this either.

Sven watched with a pleased face as Adam slowly drew the laces of his shirt free while Nigel felt like something was trying to claw free from his chest. Bénédicte's grip on his hand tightened as they both felt waiting in anxious anticipation for Adam to be fed upon. 

"That's a good boy," Sven said. "Come here."

Adam's jaw tensed but he obliged and walked around the desk to stand before Sven who remained seated. For a moment, there was silence, the tension in the room palpable enough to cut with a knife. No one spoke, no one seemed to move, but Adam took a step back and hissed, shoulders down and brows furrowed.

"Stand the _fuck_ up, Sven." He was not about to act the whore in this.

Surprisingly, Sven did stand, a smile on his face as he neared Adam. The smile widened as Adam turned his head to offer up his throat. A large hand reached to hold Adam's face and Sven drew nearer to run his nose along the expanse of throat, up behind Adam's here, further into his hair...

It was a claiming. A deliberate and humiliating claiming.

Bénédicte had to tug Nigel, gripping both of his wrists in her small but strong hands, as he tried to lunge forward in anger. The girl's grip was already bruising his wrists but he tugged more as he watched Adam. The vampire stood very still, his hands in fists at his sides, shoulders back and spine straight. He was allowing these touches, but refusing to respond to them.

Suddenly, Sven pulled Adam's head back, rough as he clutched at his curls. His fans sank deep into Adam's flesh and his eyes met Nigel's as he sucked. Nigel was frozen where he stood, rooted to the spot with rage. Adam already looked near collapsing in the few moments that had passed, his body arching in the way Nigel's did when he had still been confined to the basement. It was too much too quickly.

"Enough," Nigel growled, winching as Béné squeezed his wrist. "That's _enough_."

Sven didn't stop. Adam didn't move. His eyes were closed, lips tense together, brows drawn as though in pain or anguish. But he didn't fight it either, he just stood there. He let it happen.

But it _was_ too much and his hand sought the table, grasped the edge of it, knuckles whitening with the pressure. It was Béné who stepped forward, shoving Nigel behind her with a force she should not have possessed, to call Sven to end this.

"It is a covenant, not murder, Sven, _merde_. Leave him be."

Sven did, but he withdrew his fangs slowly. He cradled Adam's head against his palm as he watched the other vampire. Adam looked near to losing consciousness, but his eyes were open again and he stared back. He held his gaze long enough to stare Sven down, to have him step back and leave Adam alone. He managed to hold himself up long enough for Béné to allow Nigel to approach.

Nigel ran around the desk, catching Adam before he could fall to his knees or worse, the floor. Blood ran over his hand as he cupped Adam's jaw, worry radiating from his entire being.

"Adam," he said softly. "Adam, look at me."

Dark blue eyes looked up at him under long lashes that fluttered with the very exertion of being open. It only worried Nigel more.

Sven merely chuckled, wiping his lips with a handkerchief. "The debt it settled," he said, "for now. I don't recommend pushing your luck a second time." Tossing the bloodied cloth on the desk, Sven walked away. Before he left, he called over his shoulder to Bénédicte, "Do see them safely off the property, love. I'd rather not deal with them when the sun rises."

Béné nodded stiffly as he left but said nothing until she was sure he was gone. "The both of you are lucky."

"What the fuck are you talking about," Nigel spat, still clutching Adam to his chest. "That..." Nigel trailed off into a plethora of curses in Romanian that were enough to spoil milk.

The girl crossed her arms and glared, "He'd have killed you both were I not here. Be grateful for that, _tu pute_."

Nigel didn't vare what the girl called him as he brushed Adam's hair from his face. Tender and gentle. He didn't know the extent of the damage that had been truly inflicted on Adam and that worried him more than his own safety.

"He's starving," Béné told him, tone softer than before. Her worry clear on her face, in her carriage. She cursed again, made sure that Sven was long gone from the corridor beyond, before moving to the two of them. She pressed a hand to her face before tilting Adam's head back none too gently.

"You're far too heavy to carry downstairs," she muttered. "Dead weight and all that." From her finger, dripped blood, just enough to wet Adam's lips and draw his tongue to catch more. This wasn't like what Adam had done for Nigel, this was just enough to have him catch his own weight a little more.

Béné brought her finger back to her lips and licked the wound clean. "Stupid. You're so _stupid_. _Both_ of you. Now get out."

Nigel glared at the girl, but there wasn't any fire in it. "With fucking pleasure."


	9. Chapter 9

It had been no easy feat getting Adam downstairs, let alone onto a damn horse. Nigel had tied the reins together, making it easier to ride behind Adam on one horse to hold him upright while having the others trail behind. Adam almost fell several times, but Nigel was there to hold him in place.

Back at the estate, Nigel could see faces silhouetted in a few of the windows by candlelight, disappearing as Nigel met their gaze. He climbed off the horse first, letting Adam slide from the saddle into his arms. Nigel muttered reassurances that were probably meaningless to the vampire but made _himself_ feel better and shouldered his way into the foyer. As usual, Bogdan was already there. Waiting for them.

One look was enough and he stepped forward to take Adam from Nigel. 

"I'd suggest you retire upstairs," he said quietly to the mortal before meeting Nigel's glare with one of his own. "You don't understand the temptation you present to him in this state. He's no strength left and he needs to feed. I see no signs of him feeding on you."

Bogdan watched Nigel until his words sunk in.

"Please, go upstairs. I'll be up shortly with food of your own."

Nigel stood a moment longer, clenching and unflinching his fists at his sides. "He'll... He'll be all right," Nigel said, not as a question even though the implication of his words was clear.

"Yes," Bogdan replied as he looked sympathetically at Nigel. If anyone understood how the man was feeling, it was Bogdan. "Now please, go."

Nigel turned on his heel and went upstairs. HE sunk into one of the plush chairs almost instantly, holding his head in his hands. So many what-ifs were pounding in his mind, mingling with the worry and the fear that threatened to drown him. He wanted Adam beside him, wanted to let him feed and be back to his usual, frustrating self. Seeing Adam like that...

" _FUCK!_ " Nigel shouted, fisting at his hair as he leaned forward, folding himself over his knees.

Bogdan carried Adam to his own rooms, letting him sprawl in the chaise lounge as he moved to close the door. He didn't speak as he worked his sleeves loose, pulling them up over his elbows and knelt by Adam.

"I haven't seen you like this in a while," he murmured, smiling when Adam's lips curved ever so slightly. "Poor thing."

Bogdan brought his wrist to his lips and bit down, waiting for the blood to well before offering the wound to Adam. He sat nearer, holding Adam up until he could hold himself. After several moments, Bogdan very deliberately tugged at Adam's hair to pull him away.

"Go feed," he said, keeping Adam sitting even as he struggled to get at the blood again. "Downstairs. Outside. _Not_ upstairs. He brought you home and you didn't kill him even though you could have."

"No," Adam muttered, shaking his head. "Not him."

"Then go," Bogdan told him, pressing a chaste kiss to his forehead.

Adam stumbled downstairs, already feeling much more _here_ than moments before, but he was starving. He hadn't been this hungry in a long, long time. Below, three thralls and a slave. Adam didn't even care anymore. He just needed something... Some _one_.

Adam didn't know how long has passed since they came home. He made his way up the stairs like a drunk man, slowly and carefully, fingers still trembling as the blood flowed through him. 

Half a year ago, he would have feasted and not cared for who had to dispose of the body. He would have devoured all of them, uncaring. Now, as he neared the third floor, he considered that he had left them all alive. Weaker, sore, but _alive_. 

He wondered what that meant.

When he shoved the door open with his shoulder, he saw Nigel leap up from where he was sitting as though he had been burned. Adam looked at him, took him in, and stepped closer.

"I am well," he assured him.

With those words, Nigel crossed the room and wrapped his arms tightly around Adam, right there in the doorway. He buried his now in Adam's hair, breathing in the scent of blood that clung to him. He didn't care how dirty his hands were. It meant Adam was still here.

"You're here."

Adam clung back, resting against Nigel just as heavily. They were here. Home. Whole. The fact that Nigel was whole, after what had happened... Adam made a sound and turned his face into Nigel's shoulder. At least it was over. The fucking humiliation was through. 

"I hate that you had to see that," he whispered, as much for his own sake as Nigel's.

Nigel placed a kiss on the top of Adam's head and rubbed a hand up and down his back. "I'll fucking kill him," Nigel growled. "For what he did to you, I'll put his fucking head on a pike."

"You won't," Adam told him, though he very much appreciated the sentiment. He slipped his hand up into Nigel's hair and held him close. "Imagine the price from his coven if you did," he laughed softly. When he pulled back he turned his face against Nigel's, nuzzling him, drawing warmth from him.

"I don't care," Nigel said.

And then Adam kissed him, devouring Nigel this way, because he needed him. Because he hated himself for it. 

"I'd still do it for you," Nigel said through their kiss. Nigel knew Adam was serious, but so was he. Whatever bond had been formed between them had just as quickly become cemented. He knew he'd do whatever Adam asked of him and more, and he'd do it willingly.

Nigel followed what was becoming his routine, kissing Adam along his jaw and down his neck. The bite at the crook of his neck had healed now that Adam had fed, but the skin was still coated in blood now dry. Nigel kissed where the marks would have been and growled, nuzzling the spot.

"You don't know how badly I wanted to rip his head off," he said, voice rough and low. _Possessive_. "How angry I was to see someone else's teeth on your skin."

Adam groaned, leaning into the touch, baring his neck - the second time that night - willingly to the man who held him. He thought of the helplessness, of the _pain_ of being at someone's mercy again. He thought of the last time that had happened, what it had meant for him and for his entire history since.

Then he forced himself to stop thinking. To feel the kisses against his skin, the possessive hold with which Nigel gripped him. He wanted him, naked and close and _hot_ until whatever end this evening.

"You caught me," Adam murmured. "When he let me go, you where there."

"I'll always catch you."

Nigel's hands ran down Adam's back, gripping just below his ass to pick him up. His lips found Adam's again and they kissed all the way into Adam's bedroom. Nigel didn't fumble with the curtains this time, and he set Adam down with more grace than before. 

Instead of letting himself collapse on top of his master, Nigel stayed standing, removing his clothes so they wouldn't be in the way.

Adam pulled his own clothes free, tossing them aside, uncaring where they landed. He watched Nigel the whole time, taking in his body as it was bared, seeing the new bruises against his wrists... he'd have to ask about those later. Just as he would have to mark him again; teeth against his throat, lips sucking hard against the skin of his chest, over his nipples, down his stomach...

By the time they were both naked, they were aching fo each other. Wordless need that manifested in demanding hands and whimpered sounds.

Nigel practically pounced on Adam, letting his weight rest almost entirely against Adam. They kissed deeply, tongues mingling as they ground against each other. The exhaustion brought on by the fading of adrenaline increased with every moment, reminding them of how heavy their bodies were, how their bodies ached from the tension as well as from need, how there was always tomorrow to be together as they wanted.

Nigel let his arms give out and he rolled onto his side to wrap himself around Adam, nose nuzzling just beneath his jawline.

"I'll always catch you," he said again, words muttered as sleep really dug its claws into him.

Adam replied something in a language Nigel didn't understand and kissed against him, not biting but sucking shadows of bruises to his throat. He wrapped a leg over Nigel's and lazily rubbed against him. 

They continued to kiss, intimate and lovingly. Adam offered his throat for Nigel to leave marks of his own, smiling that the next night he would have to make them again. Within moments, they were exhausted. Both unsatisfied, but contented enough by curling together in lazy rest.

"Sleep here," Adam asked him, "please just stay."

Nigel held Adam, a warm embrace of safety, of something threatening to be love. 

"There's nowhere else I want to be," he said. "I'm not going anywhere, darling."


	10. Chapter 10

When Nigel awoke, Adam was still dead asleep beside him. It was strange, given that he didn't breathe, didn't twitch or make any noises the living made when deep in sleep. But there was still something peaceful about it. The dark in the room was all-encompassing to ensure there was no chance of sunlight getting in, but Nigel didn't need light to know where Adam was.

Turning onto his side, Nigel ran his fingertips along Adam's face, his cheeks, his jaw, his thumb drawing across Adam's lips. He lay like that for several long moments, admiring all he couldn't see, before nature was calling for him to get out of bed. Better to be safe than sorry, Nigel pulled the covers entirely over Adam's head before slipping from the canopy of curtains.

He didn't bother dressing as he left the room, but wished he had as he saw the lit candles in the parlour.

"I take it Adam is still asleep?"

Nigel's hands hurried to cover himself at the sound of Bénédicte's voice as she spoke from behind a book.

"Yes," he said. "He could still barely walk by the time he finished with Bogdan."

The girl hummed but didn't put her book down. "He fed?"

Nigel's brow furrowed. "I just said that he did. But not from me. And I don't think it was enough."

Bénédicte hummed again and set her book beside her on the sofa, face down and open to keep her page, but her eyes were closed. "I worry about your connection to him," she said. Before Nigel could protest, she raised a hand to silence him. "I don't care who either of you bed, or that you bed each other. My concern is what I'm seeing you bring out in him."

"And what do I bring out in him?" Nigel asked curtly.

"Humanity."

Nigel was unsure of what to say to that, his face showing as much. 

Bénédicte continued, _ " _ Y ou know as well as I do that we, the Damned, are monstrous things. Our histories, our lives, our _rules_ require us to be so. There is no room for humanity if we wish to survive. That is what troubles me.

For a moment, Nigel wasn't so sure what to do. He couldn't argue with her; she clearly knew Adam much better than he did, and had done so for much longer. She wasn't _wrong_. He had felt a change in Adam, perhaps not as enormously as Bénédicte had, but enough that Nigel knew that the way Adam treated him was unusual, that it drew speculation and anger from the others. It was seen as unnatural, even with who they were. Hell, he had felt the change in _himself_ , the way he felt devoted to Adam now, rather than repulsed by him.

"You think I'll kill him," he said finally.

Bénédicte shook her head. "No, I think you will do anything in your power not to, and that might be what does it in the end." She looked up then, ignoring the blush that immediately swept over Nigel's face and meeting his eyes. "He won't turn you," she told him. "Adam hates siring. But time keeps going, doesn't it? Flowing around us all like a river. It will take you within a few years, perhaps later with Adam finding ways to help, but it will take you. Then what is he to do alone on the shore?"

Nigel frowned again. "You think I'll get him killed."

Bénédicte sighed, "And there we have it." She paused. "Take care of him. Of the both of you. It wouldn't do well to underestimate what you are forming. Not all are so lucky."

"Who are you, Bénédicte?" Nigel asked.

The girl wouldn't look at him and she offered no answer to his question as she picked her book back up. Nigel took that as his dismissal and went to use the bathroom as he previously intended.

It took Adam a long time to wake up. He still felt as though he'd been run over by a carriage. When he reached over, he didn't find Nigel beside him and he sighed. Perhaps the night before had been too much for him. Perhaps he didn't see Adam as anything more than a victim now because of it. Respect gone, fondness gone...

With a groan he fumbled for a rode, wrapping it around himself as he moved into the main flat. He nearly tripped over himself when he saw them, side by side, legs crossed in the same direction, eyes in their respective books.

"Benny...?"

The girl set down and book and, in a blink, was in front of Adam, her little arms wrapped around his waist in a hug. The embrace didn't last long, though, and even if she did need to hop up, she slapped Adam across the face.

"If you ever do something so _stupid_ again, I will kill you myself. _Tu comprends_?"

Adam brought a hand to his face and rubbed where she'd struck him, but he smiled, chastened. He didn't dare put a hand on her head, not with others present, but he drew his fingers against her cheek. "You'll be welcome to," he said. "Life would hardly be worth it after that, were I so bloody reckless."

From the couch, Nigel had set his own book down and smiled. "Glad to see the dead walk among us at last."

Adam turned his eyes to Nigel, "Were the dead missed?"

Nigel stood, joining the pair and leaning over Bénédicte to kiss Adam's cheek. "Perhaps," he said, and then he eyed the flaking blood still in small patched on Adam's skin. "Bogdan brought up fresh towels. You may want to wipe off a touch."

Béné wrinkled her nose. "You didn't even _wash_? Filthy animal, giving the rest of us a bad name."

" _Excuse-moi_ ," Adam complained, crossed his arms as he watched Béné stalk back to her seat and pick up her book. He turned to Nigel next and found he couldn't meet his eyes for a moment, his fears from moments ago crawling against his skin.

"How are you feeling?" Nigel asked softly, feeling like something was wrong.

"Better," Adam said honestly. He was hungry, but not starved. He could feed, but he could also wait. "How are you?" _Do you hate me for what I did? Do you hate what you saw me reduced to?_

Nigel stepped closer, his hand coming around to rest on the small of Adam's back. "Fine. But I'm not the one who needed to be carried home." He looked over his shoulder at Béné with her nose in the book she held with gloved hands, and lowered his voice, "Do you... You should have something."

Nigel still hated the word "feed" even though it was the only term that really made any sense. He knew Adam was hungry, and his eyes were still dull and sunken in his face. He looked closer, trying to figure out what else was wrong, but was unable to decipher the language in Adam's face.

"Something is bothering you."

Adam cast his eyes to Béné, then back to Nigel. He didn't want to tell him, but he couldn't lie to him. Not anymore.

"I never wanted you to see me like that," he said. "That _weak_ and that..." _pathetic_. Adam shook his head, offering Nigel a smile. "I suppose it was about time we were even, seeing as I've seen you in similar circumstances."

He set a hand to Nigel's chest, moved it up to stroke against his throat. He wanted to taste, to mark him again, but not when Béné was there. He'd never do that to Nigel. _Or_ her.

Nigel barely suppressed the groan as the feeling of Adam's fingers against his pulse and he leaned down for a proper kiss. "There is nothing weak about having honour. You just as easily could have thrown me out." 

They stood a moment like that, lips mere breaths apart before Béné cleared her throat and Nigel took a step back. 

"Just because I've seen the pair of you naked does not mean I need to see you fornicate in front of me." She was only half-joking. "If you have nothing else to do, Adam, we have business to discuss."

Adam snorted, turning his eyes up to Nigel. "Shall I get Bogdan to bring you breakfast?"

Nigel tilted his head, catching the tone, the suggestion of _later,_ and offered a smile of his own. "Might save him the trip and go down myself," he said.

He moved off with a glance back at Béné, who waved him off though it was hardly as dismissive as the first time. When Nigel was gone, Adam made sure his robe hadn't come loose and moved to sit on the couch next to Béné.

"Don't tell me last night wasn't enough for him."

"No, he was more than pleased with you," Bénédicte sighed, an air of frustration in her tone. "Though I can't say the same for me. He was less than impressed that I stepped in, insisting he wasn't set on killing you." Another sigh before the girl looked up at Adam with her brow furrowed. "I don't enjoy having my loyalties questioned. But that isn't what I've come here about."

Adam swallowed thickly. He'd heard Béné step in, heard her tone and authority coming through with her age as she made demands of her leader. She could have kept her silence. She could have kept her status and her unquestionable loyalty _unquestioned_.

But she hadn't.

"Thank you," he told her quietly, earnestly. "I'm in your debt, for when you see fit to call it." He sat back, curling a leg beneath himself and crossing his arms loosely around his middle. "Why have you come, then?"

Béné crossed her arms as well, almost mimicking Adam's position, but not quite. "Your stray came around not long after Nigel took you away. Luckily Sven had the brains to turn away your scraps, but not everyone is intelligent." A pause. "Ana-Livia has taken it in."

Adam swallowed dryly again. The Blue Envy. Bitch of the northern corner of the city.

"A bit old for her taste," he muttered, bringing a hand to his mouth and absently drawing his teeth against the skin of his fingertips. "Do you think he'll attempt a revolt? Rile her to royal madness?"

"Not if she drives him to insanity first. The last stray she took in died from dead blood. The one before that went mad feasting on rats in the gutter and I believe hunters saw to her demise." Béné rubbed at her temples. "Everything that _chatte_ does infuriates me. Sven is concerned that she is picking up strays again. Perhaps hoping to claim back the streets she was forced to give up in the last feud. She's never kept more than four or five lessers, never had a hand on either of her sides, and yet she has taken in three strays recently, including one who has fled here from Russia. Something large is brewing, Adam, and I don't like it. It is much less of a headache dealing with _you_ trying to steal our ground. At least there, the only ones truly getting hurt are you and Sven."

"She's still licking her wounds from Paris," Adam said. "Surely she's not gearing up to take Bucharest _now_." If a true dispute was forming, a vampiric civil war, innocents would be butchered in the streets and the risk of exposure far more grand. Bénédicte was known for her love of bloodshed, but not like what was being threatened.

Ana-Livia did not use fear or coercion as her tools for control. She kept a madhouse. Mortals she made addicted to her blood, drawn always to her side and screaming madly in the streets if forced to be away from her. Like rabid dogs, but all young, as young if not more so than Béné when she was turned. She was clever with them, using them as her daytime scouts when she and hers slept. Despicable, but clever.

Vampires, she bewitched with promises, stories of Elders, of the Old Times, guarantees of rivers of blood in the streets. She lived for the carnage, and brought up her coven to be the same.

"Is Sven worried?" Adam asked after a while. "Or is he turning the usual blind eye on actual problems?

Béné picked at her dress, one of the very ones _she_ had from Paris. "Sven believes she's still upset Marie had given her wardrobe key to _me_."

The girl got up, pacing before the sofa as she fiddled with the lace of her gloves. She had been friends with Ana once, friendly rivals more accurately, but they had been close. She admired the elder's poise, her status, and above all else, her violence. For years Béné had looked to Ana-Livia as a mentor, a muse, and an idol all in one. But that was before she realized what lurked underneath. Before she had seen the children drunk off of her blood, writhing in starvation before she had no intention of keeping them alive longer than she needed. Her whims changed more than anyone else's and Bénédicte itched to strangle her. There were rules about children. Consequences were deserved.

"Bucharest is her true home," Béné said, stopping her pacing. "Sven is not concerned, but he _is_ paying attention. You know as well as I do he has no intention of getting involved unless his own head is on the line." She looked to Adam. "How reckless is your spawn? Would madness spill anything you wish to be kept silent?"

"Considering he expressly broke the rules of my house at the whim of a radical?" Adam replied, tone displeased. No, this wouldn't end well, if that stupid boy started to spill the secrets he had within him. It was rare a vampire disclosed their history if they had been dismissed unless pressed to. Adam wondered if this one wouldn't jump at the chance to tell his new mistress about the goings-on in Casa Adam.  "And I didn't sire him, you know that," he mumbled, as an afterthought.

He considered the threat it posed to his home, his coven. He considered the threat it posed to _Nigel_ , a _mortal_ living so freely within a vampire nest, living within the _chambers_ of the leader, while having free reign to come and go.

Lord.

Adam drew a hand over his face. No. This wasn't going to end well.

"Should I remove him?"

Bénédicte crossed her arms. "If the him you mean is your house pet, it would be beneficial to keeping him _alive_. Although with your little blood pact, I have a feeling it would not end up working in either of your favours. IF you mean your stray," Béné knew well enough to change the language she used, "then yes, I suggest disposing of it. All of us will be better off."

Adam glared at her, then looked away. He should have killed the welp when he killed the others that night, but he'd been so overcome with what had happened, with keeping Nigel safe, with keeping himself sane. His first thought would have been to send Nigel in, as he usually did; their arrangement had been based on his work for Adam's protection. But this... this was the opposite of what he needed.

He'd have to go himself.

To the boy he had just dismissed.

" _Oy vey,"_ he breathed, drawing both hands over his face now. He needed a plan. An extensive one.

Bénédicte approached Adam, pulling his hands gently away from his face before cupping it in her hands. “ _Comme diraient les poètes, tu es foutu_ ,” she said, but smiled sadly. "However, you and this pretty face of yours have gotten out of worse."

She kissed Adam as the doors opened, just on the corner of his mouth, and stood straight with her chin high. She approached the doors, the image of a girl but with the dignity of a high-born woman.

"Take what I've said to heart," she said to Nigel as she passed him. Without another word or a glance back at Adam, Béné saw herself out, rose gold curls bouncing behind her.

"What was that all about?" Nigel asked as the doors closed once again. There was an edge in his voice, if only just. He hadn't liked what he'd just walked in on. The air felt wrong.

"Trouble in paradise," Adam replied, unfolding himself from the chair and moving to set himself comfortably in Nigel's embrace, uncaring now, for the last night's happenings. He wrapped his arms beneath Nigel's own and nuzzled into his chest. The idea of this impending disaster made him anxious. "Family business," he added after a moment.

Nigel hugged Adam and hummed into his hair. "Do you consider her family even if she's in someone else's coven?"

"She's the only creature I've known long enough to consider as family," Adam said. 

He and Bénédicte have had their differences, they have spent centuries apart, they have found themselves at odds... but they always kept each other safe. 

"I owe her my life, many times over. I can find the time to run an errand for her," he continued. He wouldn't tell Nigel that this still had to do with the other night, that this was a problem he had already dismissed. He didn't need that on his conscience with all the rest of the mess Adam had dragged him into lately.

Nigel rubbed him back. There was more here. 

He risked pressing. "So will you tell me what else is bothering you? The sooner you do, the sooner you get to have breakfast." Nigel eyed the clock on the wall. "Or lunch, at this point."

Adam hummed, considering, and stepped back. Not to get away but to see Nigel easier. "I've put a lot of those I care for in danger," he replied. "Due to a lack of humility, due to losing myself in my old age, due to... deciding certain things matter more than they used to...  In short, I've been rather stupid."

Nigel brought a hand up to play with Adam's curls. "At least you're pretty," he smirked, amused by his own silly joke. "I'm here to dispose of those in your way," he reminded. "Just give the order."

Adam smiled a little, seeming slightly more himself, but something was still wrong. Nigel gave up on pushing further, knowing that the ordeal of the previous night still weighed heavily on both of them.

"Lunch?"

At this, Adam's expression turned coy, the way he'd watch Nigel before the tension between them finally snapped and brought them here. He tilted his hips, let his eyes travel over Nigel, before gesturing him to sit on the couch.

Nigel walked backwards with a smile, his hands holding Adam's so as to pull him along. When he felt the backs of his knees hit the sofa, Nigel sat and pulled his master down into his lap. Kiss-hungry lips found each other as Nigel tangled his fingers in Adam's hair, his other hand slipping beneath the robe to trail up the smooth skin of Adam's back.

"For once it would seem that _I'm_ the one who is overdressed."

"Good," Adam mumbled against his lips, moving to shoulder his robe off his body entirely. "I rather like you like this."

Adam might never admit it - he might never need to - but he absolutely loved dressing Nigel up. He was much taller than Adam, much broader. Watching him don the clothes of men Adam admired from afar, and wear them in the house just as Adam did some nights.

Nigel didn't bother suppressing the growl this time, his tongue giving a teasing lick over Adam's lips. Adam arched into the hands against him, beautifully rough and life-worn. He shifted against Nigel, closer to him, feeling him grow hard beneath his clothed. Adam slid a hand up against his neck again, as he had when they'd greeted each other earlier, watching the response.

"You'll make a mess," Nigel said and shifted his hips to rub himself against Adam. His hands felt all along the expanse of the vampire's body, nails trailing lightly and drawing a shudder from Adam. "I'd rather make a mess of _you_."

"After," Adam promised, caching Nigel's mouth in short, soft kisses. He teased only as much as either could take - which didn't take long - before tucking his face against Nigel's throat, breathing him in, scraping nails against his scalp where he clutched at his hair.

_ I want you. _

_ I need you. _

_ Let me claim you. _

_ Let me keep you. _

When Adam parted his lips to bite down, he closed his eyes. He was gentle, finding the vein, pressing down, moaning softly when he felt the blood flow. This was like nothing else. Nigel's blood felt, to him, like manna from Heaven.

Nigel inhaled sharply, his head falling back to rest on the back of the sofa. His eye closed and he saw stars as he clutched at Adam's hair with one hand and groped at his ass with the other. It had been weeks since Adam had properly fed off of him and Nigel had almost forgotten the ecstasy of the feeling, the high of it.

"Fuck," he breathed, hips bucking up.

When he had been attacked, the only thought in Nigel's mind had been the fear of returning to his slave status in the basement, the pain of it all. Now, with Adam's face embedded in his neck, Nigel's only thought was how he wanted to be inside of Adam as well. To fill him up while he drank.

Adam moaned back, trembling against Nigel, arching back as his hands sought against his ass. He took care to feed slowly, to draw this out for the both of them. He could feel Nigel against him, arching in ecstasy rather than agony, seeking for Adam rather than pushing away.

Adam's body responded in kind, burning with pleasure, _aching_ for Nigel beneath him. He wanted him everywhere, in every way. With a soft whine, Adam pulled away, drawing his tongue from the wound up to behind Nigel's ear, biting down teasingly at the lobe.

Nigel let go of Adam's hair, trailing his hand down his back to get two fistfuls of his ass. He let out a growl again, turned his head to capture Adam's blood-soaked lips. He bit the lower one, letting it slip between his teeth slowly.

"Surely you need more than that," Nigel said through laboured breath. He slipped a finger between Adam's cheeks, toying with his hole. "You couldn't possibly be _full_."

Adam shamelessly rocked back, took Nigel's finger with a groan, offered his throat for the man to bite down on. He wanted him to suck bruises against his skin. He needed it. He ached for it.

Nigel smirked at Adam, biting gently at his chin. The face he made... _Christ_... Nigel wished Adam could blush. It would be a sight he'd take with him to the end of his days.

When Nigel added a second finger, Adam laughed, ducking his head to kiss Nigel deeply, pushing him deeper into the couch. He dropped both of his hands to work his pants open, to stroke his cock as Nigel worked him wider.

"Fill me up, then," he whispered, grinning.

It didn't need repeating and Nigel shifted beneath him. Adam's laugh pulled a wide grin from Nigel as they kissed, and continued to kiss as Nigel replaced his fingers with his aching cock in one swift movement.

They both let out a moan in the other's mouth and Nigel raked his nails down Adam's back. Breaking the kiss, Nigel moved to Adam's throat, making sure to leave a mark as dark as Adam's hair.

Adam shuddered against him, clinging to Nigel as he bit him, sucked his skin and shoved into him deep. Nigel let out a loud moan as Adam pulled from him again, his grip at Adam's hips tightening as he held him, balls deep, on his cock. Then he pulled back, pushing Nigel against the couch, a growl growing in his own throat before he bent to feed again. For a moment, he held Nigel down, used his own body to move, to give them both pleasure enough to strike stars behind their eyes.

Nigel opened his eyes as Adam pulled away again, chest heaving, and his attention was drawn to the deep pink over Adam's cheeks. The flush made Adam's skin glow and Nigel damn near died right there as he stopped breathing.

"Fuck me," he managed to get out. "You're fucking gorgeous."

He meant it. Even as Adam rocked his hips like the most trained of concubines, he looked damn near angelic. Nigel brought a hand to his cheek, rubbing his thumb across the skin, warmer than Nigel had ever felt. "Thrice-damned beauty," he murmured, bringing Adam down for a kiss.

Adam kissed back with a moan, hands on Nigel's chest, gently scraping against the fabric there. He tensed his body, pulling off almost entirely before sinking back down again, setting a new, agonizingly slow pace for them to endure.

He felt _alive_. He felt _beautiful_. He felt _wanted_. 

He hadn't taken enough from Nigel to bring him to lightheadedness, but he had taken enough to feel that he was himself again. Nigel's blood made him feel whole again.

He ducked to whisper filthy things in Nigel's ear as he rode him, encouraging him to leave marks, to let his voice ring loud through the entirety of the house, telling Nigel that he wanted, needed, _adored_ him.

It didn't take long for Nigel's pleasure to overcome him, breathing ragged and head lighter than air as he clutched at Adam and lazily mouthed at his skin. Adam's orgasm wasn't for behind as they clawed at each other and rode the pleasure out. Nigel half-heartedly cursed in Romanian before he relaxed against the back of the couch, looking up at the masterpiece in his lap.

" _Te iubesc_ ," he murmured, and he meant it. For only the second time in his life, he _meant it_.

Adam panted, bringing up a hand to wipe against his lips as he watched Nigel, letting the words sink in. He'd been told it many times but many people. Those who wanted to die. Those who wanted to live. Those who he'd fed upon, keeping them alive for just a little longer.

Few had ever meant it as earnestly as Nigel.

Adam slipped a hand into Nigel's hair and then down to caress his cheek. He stroked a thumb against Nigel's lips, cupped his chin, and bent to kiss him, deep and satisfying. 

"Me too," he whispered, close enough that their lips brushed. "More than you know."

Nigel ran his hands up Adam's back, clutching the back of his neck as they kissed. He could still taste blood on Adam's lips and wondered how back the damage to his shirt was.

"Quite the pair, you and I," Nigel smirked.

Adam smiled back. They kissed until their bodies grew languid, until Adam pulled away and climbed off of Nigel before leaning to run his nose against him.

"In a few days," he said, not bothering to reach for his robe as he stood, "I'll have business. Unfortunate yet necessary business. And after..."

 _After_.

Adam considered Nigel before him, sprawled lazy on the couch, debauched and utterly lovely. "After, you should show me your Bucharest."

Nigel laughed, reaching to trail his fingers over Adam's bare skin. "I don't think _my_ Bucharest would suit your finer tastes." He was only half-joking. There were a handful of gambling houses on the "posh" side of things that might not draw too much attention. But even then they would need to keep a... safe... distance between them.

Adam considered him, taking his hand to lace their fingers. He knew, and well understood, how Nigel couldn't imagine Adam as he once was, the streets his home and doorways his mercy. It was eons ago, and if Adam could help it, it would never ben his way of life again. But it was a part of him.

"Regardless," he said. "Show me where the heart beats in this city for you. I want to know what brings you joy."

Bringing Adam's hand to his lips, Nigel brushed a kiss along his knuckles. "You can't kill anyone," he teased. "And you'll need to keep your hands to yourself."

Adam laughed, shaking his head, but acquiesced. He could be adaptable, he had been for most of his life. "Shall I dress down?" he asked, playful. "Muss my hair and dirty my face? Wear clothes too large for me? Yours, perhaps."

Nigel smiled. He liked that idea, and he said as much as he pulled Adam down and kissed across his cheeks.

"But before I take you into the slums of the city, what do you propose we do? You said it yourself we have but days before business calls."

He had picked up on the notion it was business he was _not_ to interfere in and Nigel was already not fond of that. Not at all. But he kept it to himself. No need for problems right now, not after what Adam had already been through.

Adam hummed. He'd like nothing more than to just spend time. They had a library of books, in languages spanning time as well as distance. They had the city at night, should they choose it. Adam wished, not for the first time, that art galleries and museums were open all hours.

"Whatever we wish," Adam said. And he meant it. Should Nigel want to leave for days and nights, he was welcome to. Should he wish to spend that time with Adam, Adam would delight in it. Should he wish to take Adam apart in bed, in the bath, on the couch, the floor, the table... He was _more_ than welcome to do that.

"I'm sure I can think of a few wishes."

Nigel smiled as he kissed Adam again, shifting their bodies so they fell in a tangle of limbs along the length of the sofa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation note:  
>  ** _Comme diraient les poètes, tu es foutu_** :: As the poets would say, you're fucked.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for child abuse and manipulation.

Nigel paced the room as he waited with Adam for Bénédicte to arrive. She had wired them to say she would be stopping here before leaving with Adam to "take care of things", leaving Nigel on edge ever since.

"I don't like this," he said, causing Adam to roll his eyes.

"I am aware of that, darling."

"I can help you. Being a hunter, I know a few things about _hunting_."

"So do I," Adam reminded him with a smile. In a way, it was sweet how much Nigel wanted to help. Adam certainly didn't take him for granted, he hadn't since the moment he'd captured Nigel and held him prisoner. But he wasn't about to bring him into a very dangerous nest to collect a vampire who had so recently been after Nigel's blood.

Adam may have, on occasion, taken for granted his own influence, but he wasn't that stupid.

He stood, catching Nigel by the hand as he paced by again. "It's just a night," he said.

"Still doesn't mean I like it," Nigel replied with a glare. "I've gone after entire nests for you before so what's _one_ vampire?"

Nigel hadn't been able to get _much_ out of Adam other than something was causing trouble on the edge of the shared territory between Adam and Sven. He'd be going to take care of it with Béné, which was more of what Nigel was concerned about. Two high vampires going over a covenless lesser? It didn't sit right.

"I know, love," Adam said, tone gentle. "It isn't a reflection on your abilities that you won't be joining us. It's a matter of principle for Benny."

He found he hated lying to Nigel. It was an unusual feeling. He didn't patronize him by saying more, he just pulled Nigel closer and kissed his cheek.

Nigel was about to complain again when the door opened and Bénédicte marched in. At the sound of the door, Nigel tensed, his grip tightening protectively around Adam for a moment before he released him. There was no stopping this from happening and he knew that. Making a scene about it would only be childish, petty even, and here he was still wanting to make one. 

"Adam, don't start a fight now, we're _leaving, cherie_." Bénédicte was dressed in riding gear, her hair done up in an intricate knot atop her head and she crossed her arms as she looked to Nigel. "He'll be returned to you by sunrise, pet," she said, and there was a sincerity in her tone that the man appreciated. She understood his hesitance to let this happen, it would seem. 

"Don't make me come looking for you," Nigel said quietly to Adam, brushing his hair off his forehead and out of his face.

"Don't you are," Adam replied, a quick grin to show his teeth.

Nigel didn't lean in to kiss him. He knew he wouldn't be able to stay behind if he did and Adam studied him in return, taking longer than necessary to slip away and leave with Béné. 

Outside, Béné's horse stood waiting next to Adam's, the decision to ride them based on speed and the need to stay hidden in the dark. Adam slipped his gloves on, careful to adjust every finger before taking the to the saddle and hoisting himself up.

"We'll make it back by sunrise, surely." It was a reassurance for himself that it was a true statement. He looked at Béné and smiled, "Tonight is all yours, pet. I do love watching you work."

Béné raised her chin with a hint of pride as she gripped her reins in tattered gloves, a pair she had no intention of holding on to. Their sole purpose was for riding this horse, only to be discarded one her fun began.

"It has been a long time since we last rode into battle together," she mused. "Everyone mistook me for a page boy in those days."

"You made a lovely page boy."

"You, as I recall, were actually _my_ page boy."

Adam grinned. That had been a frightfully fun day. He was almost certain that had been the fight that had secured their unlikely, but entirely welcome, friendship in the end. Now, they turned their horses north and set off along the quiet streets. People might notice, of course, with two riders streaking down cobbled streets at an ungodly time of night, but they'd hardly say anything. A hush had long ago fallen around the unexplainable. No one would set stakes on the streets anymore, instead they'd hide behind their own superstitions, shuttered doors, and hope.

It wasn't a race, and they didn't make it one. On occasion, Adam would take the lead, and then just as easily give it to Béné. Both knew where to find Ana, she was hardly hidden, but she didn't often welcome visitors. Especially those bringing the kind of business they were.

Adam caught up horse up to Béné and leaned over to speak. "Are we going in with a story or with the intent to cause damage?"

Béné slowed her pace enough to comfortably speak as they rode. "Half-truths but honest ones," she replied. "She has something of yours and you want it back."

Ana liked to play games. That was all the more reason for Bénédicte to be there rather than Nigel. The girl _knew_ these games and her appearance would help play a game of their own. If Ana was interested in a round of finders-keepers, then so be it. Béné was not above putting pathetic things out of their misery.

"There will be bloodshed either way, Adam, and I need you to be ready for that. I don't plan on allowing her to keep her brood of innocents intact."

Adam nodded, hearing the venom in her voice. He was not familiar with her entire history with this elder, but knew enough that it wasn't particularly pleasant. The hatred may have also been connected to Bénédicte's past outside of her, having fallen victim to a similar beast who prowled Rome when she was but a child. She had felt that madness, that _pain_ , before she had escaped it. To Béné, the memories still made her blood boil and her grip tightened on the reins of her mare. Ana-Livia needed to be stopped, and if she could not be stopped entirely, Bénédicte would see her crippled.

Adam only knew of Ana through rumour, having only seen her in the flesh maybe twice at the most. She had never held land or people of interest to him, and as Adam held nothing of interest to her, they had no need to interact. All the more reason he was curious as to _why_ his boy had gone to her. Surely he hadn't been so desperate as to risk himself like this. He was _physically_ too old for Ana, and the city was thriving with underground vermin of every kind. He wouldn't die down there so long as he didn't bring trouble upon himself.

"He won't believe me if I tell him he's forgiven," Adam pointed out after a few more kilometres. "I can't exactly walk in and demand he comes back."

"You can demand anything you want, Adam."

"Not if I'm no longer his master," he replied. But she had a point. Adam had status in his age and experience, in certain powers he possessed and the wisdom he held. In theory, if their laws had any weight whatsoever, he could command any of his juniors to do his bidding and they would _have to_ obey. 

"And you truly dismissed him?" Béné asked. "You have a habit of letting your previous pet do you handling." It wasn't a complete loss of a plan if Adam _had_ been the one to dismiss the past. Only an annoyance if the girl needed to rethink how they were going in.

Adam considered it. That night hadn't stuck in his memory beyond the overwhelming fear that he'd damn near lost Nigel to his own stupidity and the warmth that came with the comfort after that.

But...

"No," he said. "No, Bogdan did."

"I can't believe you let him," Béné laughed. "You haven't even had him that long."

"He started on his own, actually," Adam replied. "I just... let him keep going. He has a lovely authority in his voice when he wants it to be there. It earned him respect rather quickly."

The girl rolled her eyes. She would never understand the likes of Adam. At least not when it came to how he ran his coven. "At least your indiscretion has given us something to work with. Unless this rodent has the will to dismiss himself, we can dispose of him. Of course, in that regard, I should think your secrets would be kept safe."

It was theoretical. Not many vampires dismissed themselves from their sires entirely as it was a burden in energy and blood, but Bénédicte was getting at the idea that dismissal was still bound with honour and a self-dismissal would be something of a true, a final act of obedience in which the dismissed could not later come back to challenge their former master. The girl had done some digging when escaping from her own sire, but she had been unable to perform such a thing, instead allowing herself to be somewhat sold between coven leaders until she proved herself worthy of the likes of Sven. He was a vampire who would actually seek to protect her, and that's what she needed. Even she was capable - and successful - in being a cold-blooded murderer, it didn't mean she was indestructible. 

"Bénédicte?"

Adam's use of her full name caught her attention. She had gotten lost in thought. _Damn_. "I'm fine."

"Benny, I can't risk you getting caught in your head."

"This is _your_ mess in the first place," she snapped. "No matter what happens, the only way to be sure of anything is to dispose of the corpse properly."

"And there is no one better at that than you are, my love," Adam smiled.

Béné said nothing more as they continued to ride. It wasn't long until they came upon the theatre. Unlike Adam, who may live in a house far too grand for someone who appears so young to own, Ana-Livia was entirely ostentatious about her presentation. She didn't hide herself. She didn't even try.

Of course she ran a theatre.

Adam chewed his lip before reaching to take Béné's hand to place a kiss upon it. A reassurance, a promise. It was a gift of courage and gratitude. "Let's go on, then."

Béné held Adam's gaze for a moment, offering the merest hint of a smile before dismounting. They hitched their horses out front before heading down the alleyway towards the stage door where they were stopped by one of the older of Ana's brood. A rare position held by someone _not_ a child.

"Staff only," the usher growled.

Béné stepped forward, fangs bared. "We have business with Ana. Stand aside before I lose my patience." As young as she appeared, Béné was known by many for her ruthless reputation that meant she was often recognized on sight. The usher was no exception and stood aside without another word.

There was music drifting through the narrow halls, but it was too late for the mortal audiences Ana catered to. Practice then. Or a cruel audience of one, bored with so few humans to play with. Béné lead the way, following the music to the backstage where she had been correct. Children danced about in drunken stupors on the stage, eyes large but unseeing. Who knew how long they had been dancing like that.

Béné growled but kept moving towards the stage, Adam at her side as they interrupted. The music stopped at the reached centre stage, looking out towards the empty seating. Several children collapsed to the floor while the rest scurried away like frightened rats.

"You frightened my children, darling," a high, elegant voice rang out. "Have you seen the better of your ways and come to take my hand?"

Through the lights, she was hard to see, but Béné knew where the woman was by the place in the shadows that shifted. It was Adam that spoke in return, sensing the girl's unease. "I have business with you, Ana. Perhaps a less dramatic setting calls for it."

Ana was all about dramatics, and she hummed loudly while she thought it over. "Vampire deal in dramatics, little Adam. But I see no reason for quarrel with you."

The shape in the shadows shifted again and a door at the back of the theatre opened, further silhouetting the woman who opened it. She didn't beckon for them, but Béné knew when a game of "follow the leader" had begun.

"Stay close," she whispered to Adam. "The labyrinth starts here."

Bénédicte had not been joking as they were led down twisting hall after twisting hall, further and further into the hell of Ana-Livia's nightmare, following her shadow. Should he have been unaware that he was in Bucharest, Adam had the mind to think they were in the Parisian catacombs. After what felt like hours, they were lead into an expensive hall akin to the throne rooms of old. Before them sat Ana, herself, clad in blue silk so dark it was nearly black, her dark eyes glowing with the light of the candles around her. Her hair, done in intricate braids trailed nearly over her right shoulder while a child - a young boy - was nestled against her left.

"You've faced the labyrinth," she smiled, fangs bared as they always were. "You may state your business, lovely Adam."

Adam didn't bow, but he did press a hand to his heart in the closest approximation of deference he was willing to offer. He could feel how tense Béné was beside him, and didn't look at her. She could hold her own here.

"I thank you for your time," he started. "I've been made aware that one of my own has found his way to you, without my permission. I've come to take him home."

Ana made a face like a child, pouty as she tapped a finger against her lips. "Something of yours... I fail to see how this could have happened. I keep a very close eye on my children. I know where they all hail from and I brought each of them here to free them from the sadness of mortal life. I do not recall any children of yours, my sweet Adam."

Every word made Béné's fists tightened at her sides. "We didn't come here to reclaim a _child_ ," she spat.

Adam waited a beat before adding calmly, "I did not sire him, but he is of my house. A little older than your... charges." He hoped Béné wouldn't slap him. "He is perhaps closer to my age in appearance, though far younger than you or I. Lysander is his name unless he has lied to you."

Adam wouldn't put it past him. He had always been a rebellious soul. IT was one of the reasons Adam had liked him so much. 

The name caused a flicker in Ana's eyes and a smile replaced her coy pout. "Little Lysa," she purred. "Why didn't you say so?" The child in her lap stirred. "Is our Adam not silly?" she said to him. "Be a dear and fetch our fiendish friend for us, petal."

The child slipped from Ana's lap like a bag of bones and hobbled away down a corridor. Béné itched to follow him, to put an end to his wretched life. But she couldn't, not yet.

One day she'd set this whole helldamned placed ablaze. And laugh as she did it.

"Now Adam has made his request, what brings _ma belle_ Bénédicte with him, hm? Does my darling little angle finally yearn for a mother? Perhaps a little brother or sister to dress up?"

"She came as a guide," Adam spoke for her, knowing Béné was sure to spit vemon if she had the chance. "I'm afraid I _am_ a little silly, Ana, I was unsure of how to request a meeting with you. I asked Bénédicte to accompany me."

Adam could _feel_ Béné ready to rip out throats beside him and also knew it would hardly do for them to end up lost in the labyrinth they'd just walked through if she did. He considered Ana's gaze as she turned it back to him, when he took her question and didn't waver. They were similar in true age, he guessed, similar in strength as a result. It was true, as Ana had pointed out, that they had no quarrel. She had no reason to defend if he did not appear as a threat.

Ana rose, pouting once again. "Cheating in the labyrinth," she gutted. "For shame, Bénédicte."

Béné was spared having to respond as the child returned with Lysander. The brat looked as uppity and post as ever. Creatures like this annoyed the girl, taking their immortality for granted, thinking they couldn't be put down. He clearly thought he was safe in a pace like this, although his demeanour shifted when he saw Adam standing there.

"What do you want?" Lysander asked, eyes narrowing. But there was fear there from the memory of what had happened, what Adam had done and allowed to _be_ done.

"You're awaited at home," Adam replied, smiling wanly.

"I don't have a home," the other hissed. "I was dismissed from it."

"Bogdan dismissed you," Adam reminded him. "Not I. And while he is very much mine, he is not me. You will return to your house after thanking Ana-Livia for her graciousness."

There was defiance written all over Lysander's face, and Bénédicte hissed in warning like the feral kitten so many compared her to.

"You don't command me anymore," he said to Adam, but there were nerves in his voice even as he raised his chin. "And you do me the dishonour of bringing _her_ along with you. She isn't even of your coven!"

From her dies, Ana watched in amusement, hands clasped before her. Clearly, this was far better entertainment than watching her blood slaves dance themselves to death like a real-life German folk-tale.

Adam raised an eyebrow, considering, and tilted his head in a way that entirely changed his posture. Suddenly he was the leader, the master of his house, and everyone in the room could feel it.

"I may not _command_ you," Adam said, voice low and quiet. "But I hold you to your oath that you made upon entering my house. You will return to it until _I_ dismiss you. Your blood ties you to it, and thus, to me." He narrowed his eyes, took a step forward. It was enough. "Come here. And don't you _dare_ insult my friend again, Lysander. It will be the last thing you do."

"Wait," Ana-Livia held up a hand as Lysander took his first step. "I like the fire in this one. Dangerous. Hot. I know of how the pretty Adam runs his house, everything neat and tidy, a place for all inside it. But there is no place for fire, is there? No, it would ruin all of your pretty things. Leave the fire with me."

This is what Béné had been afraid of. She glanced at Adam, willing him to hear her silent warning. _Tell her, 'No'._

Adam considered her, a smile on his face as he felt a fire within his own chest flare. "I'm afraid I must insist upon his return," Adam said softly.

Ana moved, far faster than even Bénédicte expected, one moment on the dies and the next with her arms draped around Lysander.

"And so much I," she said, a sadistic look on her face.

"I won't give you a warning, Ana," Béné said through gritted teeth. "We have no want for fighting." It was a lie, but the girl didn't care if Ana noticed. There would be fighting. There would be bloodshed. Béné was ready for it.

"So be it," Ana said.

That was all Béné needed to throw her silver-bladed dagger at Lysander, embedding it in the centre of his forehead. And all hell broke loose as Ana screamed.

Adam couldn't care less that Lysander was dying. That was the point. He'd return to make sure he hadn't managed to recover, find someone to feed off of after crawling away into a corner. But right then...

Right then he had Béné in front of him, racing towards the Elder, and he had four vampires - far too young to have ever been turned - swarming their mother to protect her. He had little to no time to think about things, so he didn't.

While Béné may be out for some kind of revenge, for blood and carnage, the last thing Adam needed was to be fed off of again for an indiscretion. He hunted to hurt, to main, but not to murder. It was remarkable how strong such tiny things could be; surprising to Adam even though he had known the likes of Béné for as long as he had. He found he couldn't harm them more than enough to disable if he tried. He still had his morals.

Béné snarled as she saw Adam, disgusted by his restraint and knowing better than to leave him as he was. She doubled back, tearing off her gloves and lashing out with her nails like claws, ripping flesh in a spray of blood she drank out of the air.

"Adam, move!" she yelled, all rage and fangs.

He was too compassionate, too at the mercy of this _humanity_ that was plaguing him. Stupid man. These were no longer children, even the mortals. They all deserved death because they deserved to be free. Béné refused to allow others to suffer the way she suffered. It wasn't right.

The girl leapt at the boy who had brought Lysander to them, fangs sinking deep into his neck as she drained him before ripping out his throat with her teeth. She glared at the malicious grin on Ana's face the entire time, dropping the boy and stalking towards her once again.

"I've just about had it with you," she hissed.

Ana-Livia clicked her tongue. "What a naughty girl," she said, her hands being held at her sides like claws. "Look at all this mess. You'll need to be punished for that."

Adam watched, Béné was overcome by the beast that raged within her, the beast she so often kept well in check. He watched her rip anything to shreds that came near her, watched her devour and feed.

As she destroyed, she relished in it.

He stood back, far enough away that her wrath wouldn't extend to him. He watched Ana, watched Béné, watched them square up like two wolves protecting a den and then turned away.

This was _her_ revenge, _her_ anger. He would go to her when called but for no other reason. He had his own business to attend to here.

He found Lysander twitching on the ground, dagger embedded into his head. His eyes moved, found Adam's and widened in panic as his master knelt beside him.

"Stupid thing," he whispered. "You could have been great had you just a little more patience."

Lysander opened his mouth to speak and Adam _moved_. Uncaring for how the silver in the hilt burned his skin when he pulled it from flesh and bone, how it would leave a mark for days, he drew it across Lysander's throat so savagely his head fell from his body and blood bubbled between them.

Across the room, Béné lunged like a lion, her hair having come undone and flowing behind her like a mane. Ana-Livia laughed at the sight, side-stepping just enough to catch Béné by her bicep and flinging her to the floor like she was no more than a bug.

She may not have taken a real breath in centuries, but Béné felt robbed of the air in the lungs as she hit the ground. She snarled as Ana came into her line of sight, curses both in French and Latin that drew Ana's fierce hand across her face.

"Such horrid language. It is very unbecoming for a young lady such as yourself."

Bénédicte spat in her face, earning her another slap before Ana gripped her throat and drew the girl near to her face.

"Enough. If you continue to be a little bitch, I will see you treated as such."

There she was. The Ana that Bénédicte had admired so much when she was more freshly turned. Béné grinned.

"I've survived worse than the pathetic acts you consider wrath. Come on, Ana, show some damned self-respect. Stop hiding behind children you _know_ you aren't saving."

Ana glared, "Give me a reason why I shouldn't just tear out your throat."

"Because that wouldn't be as much fun as you want it to be."

A pause.

In the silence, Bénédicte knew she was right. Ana would want a more even playing field, more room to make her squirm. She had won.

"Get your filthy face out of my sight and out of my hell sworn theatre before I eat you alive." Ana pushed Béné back to the floor before releasing her and standing once more. "Come calling again and I won't be so lenient. You have five minutes."

And then she was gone.

Adam stumbled up from Lysander's side and moved to Béné. He had wrapped her blade in fabric from his torn shirt, clutching it at his side.

"I hope you know your way out," he murmured, and it earned him a glare from the girl.

They ran, and the labyrinth seemed shorter on the way out, but then again, leaving a place always felt faster than arriving. That strange face never changed, even with immortality. But it was near the entrance to the theatre that Adam realized they were dangerously close to dawn.

They wouldn't make it home.

"Benny," he grabbed her shoulder, ignoring her hiss of displeasure. "This was your neck of the woods once. You have a safe house near, still, don't you?"

It took her a moment to answer as she thought about the houses she gained and lost over the years, while also keeping them on track to escape. "Yes," she replied as they walked through the front doors of the theatre rather than the stage door - better to gather the horses. To leave them here would be to abandon them entirely. "About four blocks from here. A fourth floor flat in a row house. But we'll need to hurry, the stairs have windows."

"Wonderful," Adam muttered.

They mounted and rattled off down the cobblestones, Adam following Béné until they reached their destination. It looked well enough kept, and Adam wondered if Béné didn't own the entire property, just to keep the top flat as her own.

That's how most of _his_ safe houses remained inconspicuous. 

They tied the horses, a trough nearby ensured they would have water throughout the day, and _ran_. Even at their speed, it was in the nick of time that they managed to close the door before the sun licked against the wood.

"Fuck," Adam mumbled, drawing a hand over his face. Béné looked askance and he snorted. "Nigel isn't going to be happy."


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for child abuse and implied assault.

Nigel, in fact, was _not_ happy. He'd had Bogdan constantly bring up pot after pot of coffee until, finally, he had insisted that Nigel had had enough. He went so far as to note the man had developed the shakes like a right proper addict. But that was from more than just as excess of caffeine. He was nervous. _Worried_.

"Come on, Adam..."

Nigel had cracked the curtains ever so slightly. Enough to watch the sunrise but not flood the room with light should Adam make it home just under the wire. And rise the sun did, sky going from inky black to deep blue to purple and now it rested a burnt orange as the sun was finding its place.

" _Dracu!_ " he swore, throwing his empty mug at the wall. He couldn't sit here. Not like this. Not with his blood thudding thickly through his veins like an eel through a muddy stream.

He needed to do something. He needed to find Adam. He knew he was alive - knew that if his master _wasn't_ alive he would know that just as clearly - but not knowing where he was... It was going to cause Nigel to stat tearing out his hair at best. 

But when he tried the doors, they were locked.

He'd never been locked in before, even when Adam first let him out of the basement and given him his quarters here in the flat. He'd _never_ locked Nigel in. But now he thumped fruitlessly at the solid wood, feeling his voice rise in anger and agitation. He knew he could beat on them all day and nothing would happen beyond putting his own shoulder out or raking his knuckles to the bone. 

Wonderful.

"Bogdan, you _bastard_ , open the fucking door!"

But he wouldn't, Nigel realized. Not even wouldn't. He _couldn't_. Not if they all fell down, literally dead, when the sun came up. He was stuck til then. Stuck panicking worse than he had since the first few days in the basement when he knew he was going to die. Just not when.

The feeling was surprisingly similar to that.

Nigel's heart thudded in his chest. The anxiety felt like it was eating him alive and yet all he could do was sit on the sofa and wait for the sun to go down.

When Adam woke, it was with a groan. He was filthy, tired, unhappy, and curled up in the corner of a dark room that wasn't his own. He looked over at Béné, just as uncomfortably wedged into the opposite corner as far away as possible from the windows, and drew a hand over his face.

Her safe house was safe, but not as kept up as he thought when they arrived. There had been a bed, but the curtains had started to break apart, the mattress, too. Must have been here for half a century without use. Neither had complained when they managed to get in, finding a place for themselves and letting their curse take its course.

Now, Adam stood and stretched, carefully worked the tip of his finger against the curtains on the window to check the light outside.

None.

Nighttime.

"You look horrible," Béné told him blithely.

"You're a ray of sunshine yourself, pet," Adam replied, raising an eyebrow at her absolutely wild appearance. "Have seen you go off like that for a while. I think you need to join a gang or something, get that energy out in a healthy, productive way."

Béné offered a rude gesture in reply.

Adam grinned. "We should go. You first and I'll follow within the hour. If someone's watching, they can follow you."

"Screw you, Adam."

But the plan was sound. If they were being watched, both would be followed, and both would be able to take care of themselves. Besides, if two bloodied people left the house at once, it risked too many humans growing suspicious. That was the last thing they needed on top of the rest of it. They followed through as Adam suggested, meeting again outside the manor.

By the time Adam let his horse to its stall, it was close to morning once more. He had a few hours yet to take a bath - perhaps with Nigel - and thought to enjoy some peace, but Bogdan's face at the door dashed those ideas away.

"I had to lock the door," was all he said and, with a curse, Adam took the stairs to his flat.

Within, most of the heavy furniture had remained in place, only because Nigel hadn't been strong enough to flip it. The rest; books, silks, paintings, cups and saucers... all of it littered the floor in a whirlwind of destruction. Adam hummed, drew a hand over his dirty face, and sought for Nigel.

He found him not two steps into the flat, when he was bowled over by the man, pressed hard against the wall. Arms surrounded Adam like vices as he held him close.

Nigel had Adam in a death grip, breathing heavily against his skin as his face was pressed into Adam's neck.

"Where in the _fuck_ have you been?" he growled.

From the doorway, Béné watched curiously. From Bogdan's simple mention of needing to lock the door, she knew right away that vampire blood had _somehow_ been involved. It was not her concern in that way, but she had to admit she was curious how someone such as Nigel would react to the effects. He'd been in a fit of madness, clearly - the wreckage showed that - but he seemed unharmed himself. Little as she wanted to think of the bitch, victims like Ana's tended to claw themselves to pieces when separation hit. Or they went into withdrawal. But this wasn't withdrawal. Béné hoped Adam was smart enough to keep that from happening.

Meanwhile, Nigel's grip on Adam tightened impossibly so. He'd rather die than let go. The last twenty-four or so hours had been agony that rivalled the throws of the worst of fevers.

"You promised you would be back before sunrise."

Adam clung back awkwardly, but he held. Letting Nigel press against him, feeling his heart beating madly beneath his skin. He hadn't considered that separation would do this to him. Adam had never had a mortal around long enough for this to happen. With Nigel, this has never happened, although _he_ always came back when he went out and Adam rarely went out for more than a few hours. It was days ago that Nigel had tasted his blood, but perhaps he had given him too much, perhaps he'd been reckless, perhaps-

"We ran into trouble," he whispered, just enough for Nigel to hear. "Found ourselves in a predicament with dawn too near, and had to use a safe house on the other side of the city to sleep through the day."

He felt Nigel relax a little and used the space to move his arms free to wrap around Nigel properly. He ducked his head against the man's sweaty hair and breathed him in.

"We should've just ridden through the damn morning," he muttered.

Nigel straight enough to release his hug, but his hands found Adam's face, and he held it tenderly as he kissed him. It was a chaste kiss that ended in Nigel closing his eyes and resting his forehead against Adam's. He would ask about what happened to _him_ later.

"You've got blood on you," he said, instead.

"As do I," Bénédicte said, but Nigel didn't move to look at her. "So if you'll excuse me, I'm using your bath before I start to smell even worse."

Nigel didn't care. Adam was back, so Nigel didn't _fucking_ care.

Adam felt himself smile and gestured unnecessarily for her to find the bath before resting his hand atop Nigel's where he held him. He allowed them both a moment to catch their breath, before pushing up on his toes to take Nigel's lips with his own again.

This kiss was soft, sweet, an apology rather than a claim. Adam's other hand slipped to hold against Nigel's jaw. They were pressed so close there wasn't a spec of space between them.

"I'm sorry," he breathed. "I didn't realize this..."

Nigel quieted Adam with another kiss as his pulse began to slow and his head felt like it was clearing at long last. He took half a step back trying his best to regain his composure even if some of his dignity was gone.

"What happened?" Nigel asked, more about the blood on Adam's face, his clothes, rather than about what _actually_ happened. He flashed a glance towards the closed bathroom door. "She looks a fucking mess, herself."

Adam brought a hand to his own face, scratching absently at some of the blood dried there. "It was meant to be a negotiation," he admitted. "It turned into a bit of a massacre."

"Does anything ever not, with you?"

Adam grinned, a brief flash of teeth, and looked at Nigel. "Well, Sundays are for the Lord."

Nigel breathed a laugh, a smile playing on his lips. "I hope that your business was still seen to."

"I wouldn't be standing here if I hadn't been."

Nigel frowned at that but Adam kissed it away, not wanting to dwell on the previous night. "Given how she's bloodier than a butcher on slaughter day, I think the girl will be a while," Nigel said. "But in the meantime, you should get out of those clothes."

Adam feigned shock, raising an eyebrow before stepping closer to Nigel again. "Are you trying to seduce me?"

"Is it working?"

With a snort, Adam shook his head, shrugged, before bringing a hand to his collar tow work the cravat free. He smiled as Nigel's hands went to his vest to undo the buttons. He let him. Beneath, thankfully, he wasn't too filthy. He'd avoided most of the mess above his waist. His pants, however, would need replacing. 

What a waste.

"You'll get it all over yourself, too, if you step closer," he warned.

"Wouldn't be the first time," Nigel grinned, "but it looks dry to me." He leaned in to kiss along Adam's unwrapped throat as he began on Adam's shirt. "I'm glad you aren't hurt."

"I'm glad you aren't either," Adam told him honestly. He didn't elaborate. He'd seen separation anxiety do horrible things to thralls, or more accurately, he'd seen the things the thralls would do to themselves. "Bogdan said he tried to leave you a meal earlier. You didn't throw it down the stairs did you?"

"I don't remember that" Nigel muttered, looking away from Adam. It was a half-truth. He remembered throwing _something_ at Bogdan, but it had been so hard to focus his thoughts through the muddiness in his head. 

Nigel's hands dropped from Adam's shirt, clenching slightly at his sides. He still wouldn't meet his eyes. "It was the exact opposite of when you let me... When you healed me. Nothing was in focus. It was like the world was burning and the smoke was in my eyes."

Adam put a hand to Nigel's face and stroked against the rough stubble there. He wondered if it would be worse or better to explain to Nigel what was going on, now. He didn't know if it was worse or better that _he_ knew.

"It'll pass soon," he promised. That, at least, he was sure of. "An unwelcome side-effect that wears off if blood isn't shared again. I'm sorry I did not foresee this the other night."

If he never gave Nigel more, he'd not have that tether inside of him for long. Perhaps an inkling of it, a whisper of want and a need to be near, but nothing of this calibre.

But...

But it could be _something else._ And Adam wondered why it didn't frighten him to consider that a possibility.

Nigel gave a nod, still not meeting Adam's gaze but nuzzling into his hand all the same. There wasn't any more to say on the matter. Neither of them wanted to think of it anyway. If Bogdan didn't, Nigel would do his best to try and fix the mess he had made. He'd gone mad, but he still wasn't an _animal_.

He took Adam's hand from his face, kissing the knuckles before stepping backwards towards Adam's bedroom.

"Come on," he said. "You're still walking around soaked in dead vampire blood. I only fuck whores in filth, but there's a number of other things we can do while we wait for a bath of your own." He offered a wink to match his smirk.

Adam smirked back, following at a slightly slower pace. He left his discarded clothes among the wreckage of his apartments, entering the bedroom bare save for a few smears of drying blood against his skin.

"Such as?" he asked in response to Nigel's innuendo.

"Don't tell me old age as dried up your sense of imagination," Nigel teased as Adam reached the doorway.

Adam groaned much like a petulant child would. "I've had far too long a time using every muscle have," he complained, wrapping skinny arms around Nigel's torso. "I suppose..." He sighed. "We could play chess. That is if we can find all the pieces."

Nigel accepted Adam with open arms, drawing him into a less death-grip-y hug and kissing his temple. "Not what I had in mind, but there's plenty of time for _that_ later when you come with me to live like the peasants for a night."

Adam sighed, as though disappointed by the answer, before taking Nigel's hand and leading him further into the room. The destruction hadn't made it in here. Perhaps Nigel hadn't even slept considering his panic. Poor thing.

"At some point, I will make you eat something," he warned.

"Get in bed," was Nigel's response as he pulled back the covers. Adam crawled in obediently and Nigel joined him a moment later after he removed his own clothes. He snuggled Adam against him as he pulled the covers up, kissing along his cheek and up to his temple.

"If you're too worn out to have any fun, tell me something."

"What do you want to hear?" Adam asked, a touch of hesitance in his tone.

"How did a pretty thing like you end up with something as stuffy as Bogdan?"

Adam took a moment for the words to sink in, but when they did, he snorted. He'd been living with Bogdan for just under a century at this point.

"Believe it or not, it started in his bed," Adam said. "Ridiculously handsome man, I can't even remember where we met." Adam paused, but then added quickly, "I didn't turn him. I haven't sired anyone in centuries, and none that lived here. Through several awkward exchanges, we realized we were cursed with the same thing."

He turned to look at Nigel.

"We actually didn't talk for about thirty years. He told me he didn't want me in his bed anymore."

"I have a hard time believing that," Nigel said, wringing his nose at both the idea of someone else sleeping with Adam as well as the same someone turning him away. "I mean, he _has_ seen you."

"Mmm," Adam replied. "He _has_ , and at that point, he had slept with me for several years. I think he found me too...reckless."

Nigel brushed the hair from Adam's face, admiring the curves of his cheeks, the brightness in the blue of his eyes. He was so beautiful, the city was bound to be full of women who would kill for looks like Adam's. How could anyone in their right mind not want to reach out and touch him?

Adam leaned into the touch as he continued. "Then out of nowhere, he showed up in Bucharest. It's a small enough community, and finding me wasn't difficult. He didn't so much as ask to stay as he did move in and took over my house." Adam's tone was fond, pleased. "I suppose if I were to call him my valet, he'd slap me, but that is the closest thing to what he does here. I leave him in charge when I go away, much to the annoyance of those who've been in the house longer than he has. But I do feel he is still the most annoyed by my continued recklessness."

"I can see his point." A smile pulled at Nigel's mouth again. "You _are_ currently bedding a vampire hunter, after all. A _human_ vampire hunter.

Nigel had more questions he wanted to ask, but he was interrupted before he could even open his mouth to ask them.

"Are you both naked already?" Béné asked with exasperation as she towelled off her mane of hair. But that wasn't what had Nigel's attention as he sat up.

"Is that my shirt?" he asked, and Béné smirked at him.

She was wearing one of his local shirts, the pale green fabric forming a tunic-like silhouette that swallowed the girl as if it was a dress far too large for her frame. Her un-cinched waist and small stature only made Béné look even younger than she appeared.

"What else was I supposed to wear? Adam got rid of all the dressed that used to be in that closet."

"They were always too big for you anyway, Benny," Adam said with a yawn, also sitting up to lean against Nigel.

"They fit well enough," she snarled back at him, but it was half-hearted as she climbed up onto the edge of the bed, sitting carefully atop the covers.

"Wait," Nigel said, shaking his head. "Why did you keep dresses? There's never any women around."

"They were mine," and "They were his," mingled as Adam and Béné answered at once, both delighting in Nigel's stunned silence. Adam looked at Béné, caught her eye, and grinned.

"I had quite the collection," he continued. "But they'd have been well out of date by now, Benny. You'd not been seen dead in them."

"Funny."

Nigel was still on a delay. "Yours-"

"Surely you've been to the docks, Nigel. When a sailing ship came in there would be big business down there for us molly-boys."

With every word, Nigel's cheeks grew pinker and he shifted beneath the sheets in an attempt to conceal what _else_ was drawing significant blood flow. With Béné sitting at the end of the bed, there was little to say directly to Adam. And with no clothing, he could hardly excuse himself.

"I never had need to go to the docks," he muttered stupidly.

Béné took great enjoyment from his discomfort and smirked as she crawled closer.

"I think your pet likes the idea of your dirty old ways, Adam," she purred.

Adam smiled, stretching his arms above his head before resting back against the pillows, Nigel watching him carefully. "I think he does," he agreed. "Makes me regret giving the dresses away. Especially that red one." He bit his lip and made a small sound that went straight to Nigel's cock.

But Adam took mercy on him and didn't say more. Instead he waved a hand at Béné to get her off the bed.

"You'll need a belt with that, darling. Take whichever you wish. I could give you a hat, too. It would make you look very fetching."

"Are you dismissing me?" Béné laughed. Adam just smiled at her.

"I need a back too, before the sun comes up. You're welcome to stay the day if you wish."

The girl rolled onto her back, flopping with her arms out as if she was an actual child. "I may as well. I've already sent word to Sven and have nothing better to do. She tilted her head, looking upside-down at Nigel. "I can play with your pet for a bit."

Nigel went to protest but Adam cut him off as he got out of the opposite side of the bed. "Play nice."

Béné mockingly bared her fangs at Adam as he left. Nigel wished he had kissed him before leaving, but wasn't about to say anything like that in front of the girl before him. The door closed and Bene rolled again, propping herself up on her elbows as she rested on her stomach, kicking her feet in the air.

Nigel was the one who spoke first. "You've known Adam a long time."

"More or less," the girl replied. Her innocence was unnerving and Nigel didn't like being left alone with her like this. Not when she had that devilish gleam in her eyes and he was _naked_.

"How'd you meet him then?" he asked. "I doubt it was similar to how he met Bogdan..."

Béné breathed a laugh, "No. Far from that. It was more of a chance meeting when I was young... Truly young..."

The girl moved again, this time coming up closer to Nigel and flopping back against the pillows next to him, fingers fiddling with the fraying hem of the shirt. He wanted to stop her from wrecking his shirt, but Nigel stayed quiet as she went on.

"I was sired by a monster who now prays on the children of pious families in the very heart of Rome. It was mostly a mistake that I was turned and he was stuck with me, and I with him..." Her fingers pulled a little more roughly at a loose thread, ripping it free before she relaxed and dropped the fabric entirely. "It's because of Adam's help, his charms, that I escaped at all. He happened to be in attendance at a gathering I was being... passed around at."

It had been so long since Bénédicte had spoken about her past. If she was being honest, Sven was probably the most recent person to hear about all that had happened to her, and even that was only two or three hundred years ago. She picked at the red skin of her cuticles, settling deeper into the luck pillows as she wondered what it was about Nigel that opened those old wounds in a healing way.

Nigel listened, felt his entire body tense about the implication being made about her sire. But it wasn't with disbelief, it was with revulsion. He had grown up religious, everyone had. Before he learned of the demons that walked the dark streets in the night, he had grown up believing the Church would heal, help, and provide for those in need. Even when one and over again it did anything but.

"Adam kept me safe before I was able to strike out on my own. I've wanted to kill him a hundred times over, but stayed my hand because of all we have done for each other. He... He's more family to me than I've ever had. One of the few who doesn't see a little girl before him when he looks at me."

He didn't reach out to her, it wasn't his place, but he kept his eyes on Béné as she spoke. He didn't look away, didn't make her feel ashamed for what had happened to her entirely against her will.

"He tends to bring that out in people," Nigel agreed after a while. "The want to kill him, I mean."

Béné grinned, raising her eyebrows as she nodded. "He's a strange one. A rat bastard when he wants to be, but never cruel without reason. I think he has wanted to kill me as often as I him. It's been about 500 years, can you believe it?"

Rhetorical. She knew Nigel couldn't. She barely could herself.

"I take it you've never gotten revenge?" he asked after a while, noting the earlier tense she used.

Béné sighed again, "No. I was more concerned with getting away from as many of the Italian and English covens as possible. The connections were too close. Paris was... _is..._ the better city for out kind anyway. Lights, glamour, violence. Being close with Marie helped keep many away from me."

Nigel's confusion made Béné smile at him.

"Antoinette. Marie Antoinette."

"You can't be serious."

"I have several stolen cameos of hers. One of which I've been told they are still looking for."

Nigel laughed, helpless in his confusion. For some reason, it had never occurred to him to ask Adam who he had known throughout his life. Nigel had just assumed he never _had_ one.

"Unbelievable," he said in awe. "What was she like?"

"Nothing like how the tabloids portrayed her. She never once told the poor to eat cake." Béné sniffled. "We related to each other quite a lot. She was older, of course, but... Well she was older in appearance, but she was caught in a situation she couldn't escape either. We both ended up dying for it. I just happened to live through my death."

Nigel watched as Béné relived her time there for a moment, then he ventured, "Can I ask something stupid?"

"I don't know, _cher,_ can you?"

"More often than I ask something smart," Nigel admitted. "Adam's a bit..."

"Of a slut?"

"No! No. Well... Not what I was going to ask but-"

"He hasn't," Béné replied.

"What?"

"He hasn't kept a mortal around this long before," she confirmed.

"Do you know why?" Nigel risked. He wasn't sure if he wanted to know the answer.

Béné paused a moment, shifting onto her side to better look at him. "No," she admitted, "but you intrigue him. You don't throw yourself at his feet like other's have."

"Why would I intrigue him?"

"You tell me," Béné shrugged. "I have little time and even less patience for the likes of mortals. I don't see your motivations for half of the nonsense your kind gets up to. It's all so _juvénile_."

"You're still talking to me," Nigel pointed out, and Béné had to smile.

"I suppose I have nothing better to do," she shrugged. "And you clearly fascinate Adam enough, even before he got you into bed. Must be something in there worth exploring."

They were quiet for a moment, both lost in their own thoughts, but it wasn't awkward. There wasn't pressure to keep talking, to keep some kind of semblance of friendship going. They were who they were, they just happened to be civil about it.

"You don't want to be turned, do you?" Béné asked after a while, giving Nigel an entirely earnest stare when he glanced her way to see if she was joking. "You've got no interest in being one of us?"

Nigel's nose wrinkled. "No. No one wants that."

It was the truth. Why would anyone give up their entire lives for something so _meaningless_ as the idea of eternal life? No food. No drink. Only blood and death and rules that seemed to only result in more blood and death. Nigel loved himself too much, vices and all, to give up his life.

Adam came back in then, clad in a robe with his hair still wet. He looked exhausted and Nigel sat up straighter. "Better?" he asked aloud, his silent question hanging in the air. _Are you alright?_

Adam dragged a hand through his hair and nodded. He looked painfully human, then, despite being so deathly pale. In the way he moved and acted, in the way he was so vulnerable, now that he and Nigel had whatever they had now.

Nigel considered his earlier words, that no one would want this life. He wondered - and had for a while - how Adam had found himself this way. More and more he was finding clues as to how old he was, how he had lived his life, where he had lived it... but he'd never outright asked Adam before.

As Adam moved to the bed, he reached to tug Béné by a dangling curl. "You're in my spot," he said. "I'm sure Bogdan's made up a room for you. I'd offer you a place here, if you liked, but-"

"I would _not_ like," Béné predictably replied, though it was fond. She pushed herself off the bed and walked past Adam to the door as she slipped off his robe and got into bed where she had lain. "He's not a stupid one, this one," she added, nodding to Nigel before she turned to leave.

Adam snorted, curling up to snuggle against Nigel. "She likes you. That's high praise, coming from her."

Nigel smirked as he also snuggled down. "She also told me you have a soft spot for her." Nigel kissed Adam's temple, breathing in the rich smell of the fancy soaps used to clean the dried blood from his skin. "And here I was thinking you were just a heartless monster of a poof."

"The worst kind of villain," Adam said and Nigel could hear the eye roll in his one. "What else did she tell you?"

"Hoe she was turned," Nigel said, his hold on Adam clenching slightly. The majority of dark circles shared a common rule, no women, no children. So a young girl so cruelly treated... No wonder she carried herself like a lion.

Adam hummed, turning his head in a slow nuzzle against Nigel.

"That was quite an affair," Adam murmured. For a moment he didn't say more, then he looked up at Nigel. "Somehow the man survived as Pope for years. Unprecedented, too. Longest reign." His tone was disgusted. "Made me absolutely abhor religion for centuries after. Put me into quite a crisis of faith."

"So the crossdressing whore was once an altar boy? I'm learning all sorts of things about you tonight."

Nigel found Adam's lips and drew him into a kiss, poking his tongue into his mouth. Adam kissed back, moving against him and smiling into the kiss.

"A monk, actually," he whispered before kissing Nigel again. He hadn't thought of his past in a very long time; there hadn't been reason to. It had happened, he had survived. But it felt somehow forbidden, somehow beautiful, in telling Nigel.

Adam shifted, enough to climb atop Nigel and straddle him, kissing him into the pillows.

"Hm," Nigel hummed, "you're too pretty for a life of silence and solitude." His hands rested on Adam's hips, rubbing small circles with his thumbs against the juts of bone. "Tell me something else about you."

"I speak eight languages and swear in nine," Adam grinned. He relished in the touches, lazily kissing against Nigel's jaw and throat; teasing but not enough to drive either of them to madness. The sun would come up soon anyway.

"If I don't read, I go insane," he said, thinking of anything trivial to give to Nigel, enough to sate him til they next woke again. "I very much enjoy visiting churches. And yes, I can enter them, though holy water doesn't have a pleasant effect."

Nigel leaned his head back to give Adam more room to kiss, to bite. He wanted to ask more, to hear more, but he already could hear the exhausted pull at Adam.

"You're exhausted," Nigel said with a teasing tsk. "Gone for an entire night and yet you're drifting on me before the sun is even up."

Adam laughed, ducking to nip - not break skin - against the marks he'd replaced on Nigel when he'd last fed on him.

"Do you have any idea how hard I will fuck you when I wake up?" Adam whispered, pleased with the shiver that it caused. He pulled back enough to cradle Nigel's face in his hands and kiss him deeply. "Might even see if I can pick up a gown since you seemed so enamoured with the idea."

Nigel growled as he smiled, bringing his hands up to Adam's side. With the usual grace, Nigel manhandled the vampire to put himself on top while Adam sunk into the pillows. "Big promises," he said, "I hope you're capable of living up to them."

Adam clicked his tongue, eyes narrowed in pleasure. "I supposed we'll live and see, won't we?"

He stretched lazily on the bed, closing his eyes as Nigel kissed him everywhere he could reach, with slow, sucking kisses. Yes, he could get used to this. He had, in fact. Very quickly. There was something overwhelmingly lovely about being wanted so obviously.

Yet, unlike many of Adam's trysts, he found that he himself wanted just as badly. To have Nigel near him, to touch him, dress him, _un_ dress him... see him well.

He very deliberately did not think of how short their time would be. He did not consider what it would mean for him when Nigel went away, through time or his own choices. Instead, Adam slipped a hand in Nigel's hair and toyed with the strands.

Nigel ran his tongue along Adam's collarbone, having left a mark in his wake. "I guess we shall."

They laid there like that a little longer. Kiss, marking, teasing, until the time of day tugged Adam to sleep and Nigel watched him. Again, he marvelled at how beautiful he was and how at ease he seemed. It didn't take long before Nigel yawned and settled down next to him, he'd been awake since Adam had left the previous night, and now it was time to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes. You read that chapter right. We made the Pope a disgusting vampire.  
> \- Stags


	13. Chapter 13

Sleep wasn't easy for Nigel. He was plagued by dreams that didn't wake him entirely but kept him restless beneath the sheets.

He dreamed of blood, of death... He heard screaming and crying, saw panicked faces he couldn't place until...

"Gabi!" Nigel cried out, sitting up with his chest heaving. He ran a hand over his face, his eyes clenched tight as he tried to remember what happened in his dream... But the details were gone.

He hadn't dreamed of her for a long time. He couldn't remember the last time he had, and the thought alone sent shivers down his spine and cooled his blood.

Was he forgetting? Was he giving up on her? Was he becoming something he didn't ever want to be?

"Fuck," he sighed, rubbing his eyes and trying to catch his breath. He near jumped out of his skin when a cool hand settled between his shoulders.

"You've said that name before," Adam said softly, ignoring the jump.

"It's nothing," Nigel said quickly, not looking at Adam. He fought the urge to shrug off the hand at his back, his feelings conflicting again. Shaking his head instead, Nigel repeated, "It's nothing."

Gabi was the _last_ person Nigel wanted to talk about, and he had no intention of openly discussing her with Adam. He wouldn't put her at risk like that no matter how much he had come to trust him.

Adam curled his fingers against Nigel's sweaty skin before dropping his hand away. He didn't ask again. He could feel in the pit of his stomach that he didn't want to know. Instead, he rubbed his eyes and stretched beneath the sheets before moving to get out of bed. Nigel didn't stop him.

He wrapped a robe around himself and left the room with a gentle look towards Nigel. Nigel could hear him as he opened the door and called for Bogdan to bring breakfast for him. He could hear as Adam switched languages and yelled something in French as Béné greeted him.

He could hear and he didn't listen. He just focused on catching his breath.

"What, is it too much to come out and greet me himself?" Béné asked in French as she stood at the main doors of the apartment.

She was wearing a robe that Bogdan had brought her until she could find something that would be a more suitable fit. She didn't care. She'd just knick another of Nigel's shirts if she needed to.

"What's wrong?" she asked when Adam only gave her a look.

With a hum, Adam stepped out away from the bedroom, leaving the door half-closed behind him as he approached the main doors. Even still, he answered in French. "He called out a name in his sleep again," Adam said. "He's spoken it before. Used to say it like a prayer when he was in the basement. He hadn't been woken by nightmares for weeks, until now."

"Is it a name you know?"

Adam shook his head, shrugged. "There were three that attacked us when we first took Nigel. I suppose it could be one of them."

"What is the name?" Adam narrowed his eyes, shook his head, and Béné buffered out an irritated breath. "I don't kill _everyone_ I meet, Adam."

"You kill humans," Adam reasoned, smirking when Béné scowled at him, pretending to look affronted. Behind her, Bogdan had come up with a tray, and Adam took it from him, catching his hand to kiss the palm before lettering him go. Béné made a face but didn't comment, enjoying the look of mild embarrassment on Bogdan's face as he descended the stairs again.

"I suppose I could invite you in," Adam offered.

"As you should," Béné said coming in to sit in what was becoming her spot. "It's curious to see you with your knickers in a bunch about a human."

Adam hummed, displeased with his company considering how he already worried about trying to talk to Nigel this evening, but said nothing. It wouldn't matter if he did. 

The girl looked longingly over at the tea set as Adam set the tray Bogan handed him on the table. She missed the tea of her youth. Even the poor had it. Shame to use such dainty cups for coffee.

Adam sauntered to his bedroom again, leaning in the doorway and holding his robe closed with crossed arms. "I'm afraid your coffee is in danger of being stolen," he said, offering a smile when Nigel looked up.

Nigel smiled back weakly, not having moved from where he sat up. "I didn't think vampires enjoyed coffee," he said in an attempt to brighten the mood, but he sighed when it didn't work. "Come here."

Adam did, settling next to him in a comfortable sprawl. "She may not like it, but she _will_ drink it," he warned.

Putting an arm around Adam's shoulder, Nigel nuzzled his nose just breath Adam's jaw. He ignored the warning. Bogdan could bring up more if Béné insisted on suffering through the coffee already brought up. "I'm sorry," he murmured, just breaking a kiss along his skin. "With you being gone the other day... It's set something off. That's all."

Adam enjoyed the nuzzle, leaned his weight further against Nigel and let his eyes close. He didn't know what to tell him. Adam hadn't dreamed in centuries, when the day came he was truly dead to the world. He remembered, of course, he allowed himself to. He indulged in memories sometimes.

He decided not to ask about the dream, the name, the anguish in which Nigel had called it out. Instead, he turned his nose against Nigel's hair and breathed him in before kissing his temple.

"You needn't apologize for being human," Adam reminded him. Kissing again at his temple, a lingering thing, for good measure.

"Sometimes it feels like that's the only thing I need to do," Nigel wasn't sure if he spoke for his sake or for Adam's, but the thought floated there like a black cloud full of heavy rain. He stood, not letting himself wallow, and not wanting Adam to either.

"I should probably start keeping some of my own clothes in here," he mused. "Especially if you're going to start entertaining children."

The humour had returned to his voice somewhat as he rifled through the growing pile of discarded clothes for an extra robe.

Adam snorted as he watched Nigel - understandably yet regrettably - cover himself up. He wrinkled his nose in pleasure as Nigel looked back at him and gestured with his chin that he go into the main room. Then he pushed himself to follow.

Nigel still felt himself drawn to Adam, though not as intensely as the previous night, and opted to hold his hand with laced fingers as they joined Béné in the other room. She was seated at the table glaring into one of the fancy teacups.

"It's only coffee," Nigel said. "It doesn't bite."

"Ha. Ha." The girl replied with a tight sarcasm that made Nigel laugh as he let go of Adam's hand. "You humans don't appreciate the luxuries of food that are squandered on you."

Nigel risked ruffling her hair as he sat down at the table, pulling the untouched cup towards himself. "Trust me, darling, coffee is not a luxury I take for granted."

Adam caught Béné before she could unleash her not insignificant wrath and kissed her bare knuckles. It would seem Bogdan had failed to find her a pair of gloves.

"He really doesn't," Adam assured her, amused. "What are you jealous of anyway? I'd have thought you weren't just full up, but had _over_ eaten the night before."

Béné glared, but not viciously. "It would be nice to taste the sweet smells I'm being slapped with every once in a while."

"So you can't even taste it?" Nigel asked as he poured a second cup already.

"No," Bénédicte pouted. "It's all dust."

Nigel didn't know if he should drink his coffee now, with the girl looking so dejected in front of him. He decided to when Adam rolled his eyes and nodded that he should continue.

"I'm always surprised at that actually," Adam said. "The rest of our senses go insane with the change while we lose taste. Eyesight, smell, hearing touch..." He drew a knee up to rest his cheek against as he looked between Nigel and Béné. "Actually, that's not entirely true. I can usually taste the vintage of whatever you've been drinking, Nigel."

Nigel flushed a little, but was growing used to how casually Adam spoke about their goings on so he didn't sputter or choke on his coffee as he otherwise would.

Béné glared, "You're lucky I _am_ still well-fed from the other night with the way you keep making this one blush. You're practically putting him on a platter."

Nigel set his cup down. "Correct me if I'm wrong," he said, "but you seem more annoyed by the world than normal." It was true he hadn't know Béné for long, but this cynicism seemed darker than what he was coming to expect.

Béné hissed a little but it was half-hearted. Adam just raised an eyebrow at her before looking at Nigel again, mouthing, " _She's jealous"_. He considered Nigel a moment longer before turning to Béné again. "He's not your type, you know," he said aloud. "He's too nice."

Béné swept her arm across the table, knocking the tray to the floor as she stood. "Type? He's not my _type_? Is that really what you think of me?"

"Benny, you're being ridiculous," Adam said, mildly annoyed at yet another distraction of his things, as well as not being particularly in the mood for the younger vampire's tantrum.

"Oh, excuse me for being ridiculous! I'm only a _child_ after all, aren't I? A silly little girl who couldn't _possibly_ be worthy of some hell sworn attention!" She knocked the chair back behind her as she stood, storming off about the room but not going anywhere.

Adam chewed against the side of his thumb again, eyes in middle distance as he said a silent word of thanks for the already disastrous state of the flat. It has been a while since Béné had responded so explosively to something so minor. It happened every fifty-odd years or so when the pent-up rage at her situation and her inability to change brought on a mid-century crisis.

"What is it you wish us to attend to, _cherie_?" Adam asked, not unkindly though there was exasperation in his tone.

Béné wasn't listening. Instead, raging back and forth in English and French, peppering in a few choice Romanian curses that would have made Nigel smile if he hadn't been foreign at what was unfolding before him.

"You don't understand what it means to live as you do," she said, turning back on Adam, a perpetually blood-stained finger pointing at him accusingly. "What it means to bed anyone you wish to without consequence, with _repercussions_ or second- _fucking-_ guessing. You said so yourself, you even _drink_ off of the saturated blood you get from your pet!"

In a strange way, Nigel understood what she meant. No one could ever take a child seriously, not even one as cutthroat as Bénédicte - there was a reason she was unable to clear the blood from her hands, after all. to be with someone - truly _be_ with them - they would need to have a damaged mind to do such things with such a young body, or be an actual child of her age who would be unable to give her what she truly wanted. Nigel would rather be dead than in her position.

Carefully, he walked over to her as she continued to vent her frustrations against them, to curse out Adam as if he was the monster who made her this way. 

"Bénédicte," he said, as quiet and as calm as he could manage, and took her trembling hand. She slapped him across the face with her other one as he knelt at her side, nails scratching deep lines into his face.

"Don't touch me," Béné hissed, but Nigel didn't let go. He'd dealt with worse pain than a scratch on his cheek.

He brought her knuckles to his lips just as Adam had, placing a light kiss on each bump of the bones beneath her pale skin. She hissed at him again, this time in French, as he inched closer, still on his knees to be just below her eye level. Another slap and he dropped her hand, but put his arm around her waist to draw her near.

" _Unhand me_ ," she demanded. 

Nigel kissed her cheek instead. "We see you, Bénédicte. You have nothing to prove to either of us. Not to Adam, who has seen you from the beginning. Not to me, who you could crush with the flick of your beautiful wrist." Another sweet kiss, slightly higher than the first, along the bone surprisingly sharper than one would expect to see on a girl who appeared so young. "I see you."

Béné made a sound, a weak thing, and tried to push Nigel away again but without the strength of her earlier wrath behind it. She didn't melt against Nigel so much as she let her muscles relax; like a marionette without its strings. She accepted another kiss to her cheek. Accepted the words and the way Nigel;s hand felt against her, without any of the revolting groping that often came with someone so much older touching her. _Who is this man_? she found herself thinking.

Adam watched, speechless. He himself hadn't approached Béné in moments like this for a very, very long time. She was especially vicious when she felt helpless, and here he was watching as Nigel soothed her. As she _let him_.

 _See?_ he wanted to tell her. _See why him? Why I can't just-_

"Let me go," Béné demanded, a hint of laughter now in her eyes as Nigel nuzzled against her cheek while she squirmed against him. 

"Only if you promise to stop being a bitch," Nigel teased, letting his grip on her waist slip and he allowed her to push him over.

"I will behave however I please."

"Maybe you could start by finding some proper clothes. That robe isn't doing anything for you."

Béné stuck out her tongue at Nigel and harumphed as she strode off to his room. Nigel remained of the floor until the door slammed shut, then he got to his feet and strode over to Adam. There was blood trailing down his cheek and he winced as he touched the cuts with the tips of his fingers.

"She really is a wild cat," Nigel said as he sat next to Adam.

"You're reckless," Adam whispered, standing to kiss Nigel before he could say anything else. He was beautiful. Wonderful. Compassionate and brave. _Human_. "I..."

He trailed off as he turned Nigel's face to gently lick his face clean. Adam didn't relent until the blood stopped and only the marks remained against Nigel's cheek. Then he bit the tip of his own finger, drawing his blood against the wounds to help them quickly heal without getting Nigel drunk on it.

"You what?" Nigel smiled at him. His smile faltered a little at the look on Adam's face and he leaned forward to kiss him, pulling his close by tangling his fingers in Adam's hair.

Adam just groaned, a small noise, wanting to kick himself for his sentimentality. This wasn't the time, the place, the person...

No, it was certainly the person.

But not here. Not yet. Not _now_ , anyway.

When Adam pulled from the kiss, he smiled, bringing a hand to Nigel's undamaged cheek as he looked at him. "I'll kill you if you do that again," he laughed. "I thought she was going to eat you alive."

Nigel only shrugged as he smiled knowingly at Adam. "You can't kill me if she beats you to it. Besides, it worked one, who's to say it wouldn't work again?"

Adam just shook his head and kissed him again chastely. He looked around the room, at the mess of it all. 

"I know," Nigel said, also looking around, "Bogdan will likely try to kill me next, given the mess I made. Perhaps you should give him the night off so I can clean it up."

"You shan't," Béné said, walking out of Nigel's room, another shirt of his on and a belt around her middle. " _You_ are going to take _him_ to buy new clothes, Adam."

"Because you've decided to adopt a new country style and claim his wardrobe for your own?"

"Because I've seen you wear that robe more time in the last few days than I have seen all of your dresses on you. You're both in need of a new wardrobe. A proper one."

"I buy from England," Adam pouted. "I like English clothes."

Béné rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. "There are English tailors here just as there are French tailors in New Orleans across in the Americas. Fetch a coat at the very least and come with me before I drag you out of here by your-"

"Enough," Adam conceded, raising his hands in surrender. "Enough, I'll come shopping with you."

Beside him, Nigel shifted. As much as he didn't care to go shopping, the sort of wardrobe Bénédicte had mentioned the previous night had captured his interest.

Adam passed him to return to his bedroom to dress, and as Nigel made to follow, Béné caught him and pushed him to sit once more. She studied him like a piece of artwork, enough to make him squirm in discomfort before she let him go.

"I'll guess at your size," she said. "It's been a while since I've had to use my eye, but it's something you never quite forget. You can't keep yourself in these shirts, if you want him to," she tilted her head, "stay _interested_."

It was in jest, of course, but the implication was clear.

Nigel fought back against another flush that rose to his cheeks. This girl frightened him. Even if he had been kissing her face only a few moments ago. She would have been a hell of a woman had she been allowed to grow up.

He stood, brushing off his discomfort with literal motions. "Get him something pretty," he said and bent over to kiss the top of her head, carefully sidestepping when she swatted at him. "And bring _that_ back in one piece," he added, gesturing to the tunic Béné wore. "I like that shirt."

Adam was half-dressed when Nigel when into the bedroom, working the laces on his shirt. Nigel came around him and kissed him, pulling a groan from Adam's chest.

"This will be all night," Adam warned. "It is never less than that, but-"

"You _will_ come home by morning," Nigel confirmed, brow raised.

Adam nodded, "I will come home by morning."

Nigel sat on the bed and - despite wanted to distract Adam from getting dressed - watched him get ready. He marvelled again at how handsome he looked with the high collars, the tight vests, the jackets he so coveted. When Adam left - and Bénédict with him - Nigel pushed himself up.

He had trashed the flat in his panic the night before. It would be cruel to make Bogdan clean up the mess himself. But, by the time he walked out into the main room, Bogdan was already there.

"You're like a phantom," Nigel told him, after cursing in surprise. Bogdan cast a look at him and shrugged, but his expression was pleased. "Well since you're already here, how can I help?"

Nigel asked, pushing the sleeves of his robe up. No point in dressing if he was going to be cleaning all night.

Bogdan raised an eyebrow. "You want to _clean_?"

"Is that really so hard to believe? I'm not an animal. I can pick up after myself."

That made Bogdan snort a laugh. "Oh you can, can you? With the state of your clothing, I hardly believe that."

Nigel ducked his head and laughed too. His appearance, he supposed, didn't bode well with his promises. "I like to remain unpredictable," he said, watching Bogdan expectantly until the other shrugged and gestured towards the books that Nigel had scattered over the floor.

"You and Adam have that in common," Bogdan said quietly, almost to himself, as he continued to deftly remove pieces of shattered china from the carpet.

"He told me the pair of you were something of... an item," Nigel said, taking care to put the books back in something of an order. "He also said you were the one to get bored first."

Bogdan hummed, a tone that suggested a thinly veiled sarcasm akin to _well fancy that_. But after a while, he offered an answer.

"We slept together for several years before I decided to take my leave," he said. "I'd only recently been turned. While also had lived through much and long ago indulged in his desire to travel and discover, I hadn't yet done so myself. I'd grown restless. Adam isn't used to being told no." Bodgan smirked, amused.

Nigel could understand the need to move around. He'd been like that before he'd found Darko, before Gabi. He winced at thinking of the woman and pushed down the memories that threatened to bubble up.

"Still can't quite think of someone saying no once they've had him," Nigel said, more to himself. "Better than even the best of the trained girls."

Bogdan snorted, considering Nigel a moment before returning to his work. He had often wondered if he had done the right thing walking away when he had been so impulsive. Occasionally, seeing Adam with this mortal, the way he turned his body, softening his features, became so entirely pliable... Regret was a strong word, but on occasion...

"That's how I met him," he offered. "At the docks. With the trained girls... And boys."

It was Nigel's turn to snort as he faced the vampire butler. "Buying or selling?" Nigel still couldn't see anyone so refined selling themselves. He remembered Adam mentioning he had come from filth that night he put the rebels in their place, but he hadn't quite believed him. Or, at the very least, he had a hard time picturing it.

Moving on without waiting for an answer, Nigel asked, "Do vampires often frequent the docks looking for love?"

"I'd gone because I was hungry. The docks were a fertile hunting grounds. Lots of people, few questions. As you can imagine my dinner was quite against my eating him. He put me in my place."

"But you weren't the one to turn him? Or do you mean that's where _you_ got turned?"

Nigel wasn't sure if his questions were rude as they tumbled from his mouth as though he were an overly curious child.

"No, no. I mean Adam found he enjoyed being bitten until I tried to feed off of him," Bogdan replied, drawing a hand over his face with a groan. "I was only a few years old then, he had centuries upon centuries on me. I'm surprised I made it through the night alive. You've probably noticed Adam has a bit of a control issue?"

Nigel smirked. "I wouldn't call an appreciation of being manhandled a control issue. He _does_ enjoy a good love bite or two."

Bogdan laughed again, an easy thing, and shrugged. He wasn't about to argue. "Yes," he settled on saying. "His appreciation goes through the walls and down the stairs some nights."

With a final smile from Nigel, they settled into silence. He wouldn't admit it, but Nigel was growing more curious about what Adam's limits were. He found himself more curious about the relationship he shared with Bogdan as well, a jealous pang running through his chest. In the end, it made sense, but he had only _just_ called out Gabi's name in the dark, racked with guilt at where he was... Now he was feeling territorial over the same person he felt the guilt towards.

Fucking emotions.

Why couldn't they just make some God-damned sense.

They continued to work, the silence slowly drifting from strained to comfortable. Nigel finished tidying the books, moved to collect some of the clothes that were scattered everywhere, while Bogdan made quick work of the culinary mess.

Some hours had passed, but neither seemed in a rush to do anything else.

"Vampires have no need for a refractory period, you know," Bogdan said out of the book, a very mischievous look on his face. "He'd never tell you, so I suppose I shall."

It took Nigel a moment to figure out what the vampire was getting at, and then a blush threatened to take over. "Good to know," he said in awkward thanks. "Maybe see to some earmuffs in future. Should I take advantage of that trait."

"But I do so enjoy listening to the two of you," Bogdan teased. He supposed if Nigel was going to play, he was well within his rights to do so as well. He'd never felt much about the mortal one way or another. He'd seen him in the basement but never fed on him, he'd watched the way Adam had grown fond of the man, had brought him to his rooms. Adam was happy and Bogdan did enjoy having a reason to cook again, now that it was a needed skill.

"I'd invite you to join," Nigel said, entirely playing along, "but you're not exactly my type, and _clearly_ you know how possessive Adam is." He added a wink for good measure.

Bogdan laughed again, he himself had never found mortals interesting after he'd been turned. He could no longer love them. But friendship? That he figured he could manage.

He offered to bring something up for Nigel to eat as he finished up, but the man declined, saying more coffee was enough. By the time he returned with the steaming pitcher, Nigel had dressed - well, he'd put on pants and was watching pensively out the window.

"Soon," Bogdan told him, knowing what he was thinking. "There's only so many clothes one night can yield."

Nigel moved away from the window with a sigh, but put on a weak attempt of a smile for Bogdan. "I'm not going to rip everything to shreds again, if that's what your concern is."

He was almost sure he wouldn't, at least. He felt empty, but not manic with the anxiety that had flooded him before. At least he had a more general idea of where Adam was. Maybe that was the difference.

Bogdan shrugged. "It's not my things you've been breaking. I hardly mind." He paused a moment, before adding, "It won't happen again. What... happened before. It's strongest after the first time you've shared blood and continues to be strong if you consistently do so. It builds a bond with the host feeding you, ensuring you return to him. Unless I'm missing something, you'll be okay."

Nigel's brow furrowed as Nigel thought about that. "Do you... Do you think..." he trailed off. It was a stupid question. "Never mind..." 

Bogdan stepped closer, not near enough to crowd Nigel, but enough to show he was listening. "Why did Adam give it to you?" he asked and waiting for an answer.

"After the, uh, the three of the-"

"To help heal your wounds, yes?"

"Yes."

"And after?"

"I don't follow."

Bogdan sighed. "Did he offer you more?"

Nigel shook his head. He hadn't asked and Adam hadn't offered. Sure he had brushed some against the scratches Béné made, but he hadn't had him _drink_. Even when they got rough, it was a drop here or there from a wound that closed in seconds.

"He has no intention of tethering you that way. It would require daily feeding, enough to bring your entire body to madness should you go without, let alone if he was gone." Bogdan offered a small smile. "Adam rarely seeks out such things. He doesn't sire vampires and he doesn't force himself on those who don't want him."

Nigel looked away, not exactly at the ground, but into the middle distance. Bogdan was right about Adam not forcing himself. "Has he ever truly sired someone?"

"He's never told me and I've never seen him do so," Bogdan replied honestly. "But I have known him a long time. He may have and disliked it, or he may not have and fears to... I'm not sure."

Nigel suspected the latter, but that was him being selfish. There was still much he didn't know about Adam. Or vampires in general, really. He thought he had known much more than this.

The way Bogdan looked at him now...

"I've no intention of asking him," Nigel said, standing straighter. "I'd rather be dead."

Bogdan opened his mouth to say more, but there was a loud slamming of the door downstairs. Both turned to look, listening as the two that had left in such a whirlwind returned in seemingly the same way. Bogdan shifted enough to lean his weight against the table as he looked towards the door. Nigel remained where he was.

First Béné, clad in a beautiful new gown that fit her perfectly and made her look even less human. She was like a china doll, ready for someone's bookcase to be displayed. She carried an absurd number of bags and Nigel was about to greet her, tease her for all she carried, when behind her came...

"Adam..." Nigel breathed.

He hadn't physically changed, he was just as lovely as when Nigel kissed him farewell, but now...

"Far too many people out beyond the time they should be," he complained.

He wore a shimmery, lovely thing. Also a gown, a blue so place it was almost gray, an over-skirt the blue of his eyes. Gold beading and stitching decorated the décolletage and sleeves, as well as the hem. Adam wore it as though he had been born to, elegant in his movement, graceful, far too fucking beautiful.

Nigel heard Bogdan curse and glanced to see the vampire press his knuckles to his lips, eyes wide. Nigel felt about the same way, flushing in more places than just his cheeks. He shifted where he stood, desperately fighting against the urge to pounce on him immediately.

"Jesus," he breathed and held out a hand like a gentleman asking a woman to dance. To say Adam was beautiful was an understatement. He looked like those paintings driving everyone mad in Italy. He looked angelic. He looked... "Gorgeous."

Adam inclined his head, eyes narrowed in delight, and took Nigel's hand. He turned to Bogdan, sent a slow wink his way, before addressing Béné.

" _Cherie_ , I'll give you the honour of dressing this one another night. I'm afraid I've rather missed him."

"Deviants," Béné murmured, but she set the bags down and sighed as she held out her hand for Bogdan to take. "Fine. I'm in a mood for some _actual_ conversation, not watching you two drool over each other."

The girl's words didn't even register as Nigel brought Adam's had to his lips without breaking the heat of their eye contact, he didn't even acknowledge the click of the door shutting.

"I want to do horrible things to you," he said, lowering Adam's hand and taking a step closer, her free hand running along the bodice to rest in the small of Adam's back. "Coming back here dressed like this, without even the decency to warn me first. Shameful."

"I didn't know we dealt in decent," Adam murmured, eyes hooded and pleased. He'd known he would have an affect on Nigel showing up this way. He had insisted on getting several gowns while he was out just for this purpose. He also knew this one was unlikely to survive the night.

Nigel skipped Adam's lips all together as he released his hand to lift his chin with his fingers, his mouth going right for the tender spot where his jawline turned to neck. He held Adam close enough to feel the bulge in his pants, the heat on his skin as excitement rushing through his veins. 

"You beautiful thing," Nigel groaned, drawing his teeth across Adam's skin. His brain had shut down, only processing how Adam looked and how he _wanted_ Adam.

Adam set his hands against Nigel's chest, arched against him, pressed nearer to feel how hard Nigel was from just _seeing_ him this way. He'd been aching for the man for days now. He enjoyed very much the closeness, the intimacy, the gentleness... but once in a while a man just wanted to be decently fucked.

"Do you like it?" he whispered. "Fabric so thin between your hands and my skin. Pale thighs clad in absolutely nothing at all beneath."

A growl emerged from Nigel's throat as he bit down harder and then came up to devour Adam's mouth. He stepped forward as they kissed, pushing Adam back until he heard the soft thump of his body bumping into the wall. 

"Keep talking like that and you may end up going without," Nigel said, his breathing already heavy. Every one of Adam's words when straight to his groin and the last thing he wanted was to blow his load before his pants were even off. He pressed against Adam more roughly, feeling the reciprocated bulge beneath the thin fabric of the gown.

Adam watched him, delighted, a smile against his lips as he let himself be moved, be shoved and held. He'd fed, just a little, when they were out, remembering how Nigel had enjoyed watching him blush. He could feel the warmth spreading across his face now as he tentatively rocked up against Nigel, set his feet a little wider to welcome Nigel's let between them.

"How should I talk then?"

Nigel kissed him again, pushing him harder against the wall before he spoke, "Turn around and we'll see what you have to say."

Nigel didn't give Adam a chance to respond as he turned him around and pushed him against the wall again. He trailed kisses and love bites up the side of Adam's neck, rubbing against his as he pulled up the liquid-like fabric of the skirts to reveal the pale curves of Adam's ass. With one hand at Adam's waist, Nigel brought the other to Adam's lips.

"I do have better ideas for that pretty mouth of yours, though."

Adam shivered, parting his lips with a soft sound and let his eye close. He arched his back, felt the fabric bunch against Nigel's arm as he moved. His fingers were hotter than Adam's, pressing hard against him to hold him still.

Adam felt he could come right then and there, just from this. Memories, pleasures, desires, everything mixed together to bring a moan up his throat. He sucked Nigel's fingers like he was being paid for it. Like he needed to in order to live.

Nigel growled against Adam's shoulder, enjoying the marks already showing and the blush teasing along the surface of his skin. Adam's tongue worked his fingers like he was sucking at the most delicious thing in the world. Like a cock-hungry whore.

Nigel was soaring.

His free hand worked open the front of his pants, and he teased his cock between Adam's cheeks. This was just like that first time, that need threatening to eat him alive.

Adam touched his teeth gently against Nigel's fingers, teased the danger there, but refrained from biting down. He rubbed back against Nigel as he continued to suck on his fingers, and relished in the response he drew.

He was so _wanted_.

When Nigel freed his fingers, Adam moaned at the loss. " _Nigel_ ," he pressed his cheek against the wall, spread his legs wider. "Please..."

Nigel brought his hand down between them and fingered Adam without mercy. He was impatient, _Nigel_ was impatient, but there was still the voice in his head warning him not to push too far even if Adam was far from breakable. Things still needed to be done to ensure they both enjoyed it as much as they wanted to.

"Look at you," Nigel said, voice rough and low. "Christ, you're obscene."

Adam whimpered, needy, and started purring Latin against the wall. Prayers, curses, pleas, poems... anything to feel Nigel shudder against him, to feel his fingers spread and curl within him.

He hit that spot that made Adam see stars and Adam moaned, lips stretching out of shape against the wallpaper. He curled his nails, pushed up on his toes, arched his back...

"God, Nigel, _fuck me_."

Nigel pushed his fingers deeper, revelling in the sounds, the words he couldn't quite understand. "Ask me again."

Adam reached behind him, grabbed against Nigel's wrist, feeling his pulse hammer beneath his skin. Horny, desperate, aching for him.

"Nigel," he breathed, a rush of curses coming out before he could manage English once again, " _Fuck. Me. Please_."

Nigel pulled his hand from Adam and used it to position himself to replace the loss with his cock. He sheathed himself in one go, letting out a loud groan and biting down on Adam's shoulder. His eyes closed tight as he forced himself to breath, taking in Adam's scent as a grounding point to keep himself from losing it too soon.

Adam let out a mewling noise, pathetic and needy, and it pulled Nigel to move every thrust deeper and faster than the last. It was rough, aggressive and dominating, and pushed Adam flush with the smooth wood of the wall. IT was the kind of sex a desperate man had in an alley. The messy kind too uncouth for even closed doors.

And yet here they were.

Adam scratched against the wall, desperate, aching for this and more. This wasn't just sex, it was a thorough _fucking_. Nigel brought his hand back up and gripped Adam just below the jaw to pull his head back. They would be shaking windows, definitely disturbing those on the floor below.

"Needy thing," Nigel growled. "Is this what you wanted? What you planned for when you picked this fucking this out?"

"Fuck yes," he managed, pushing back against Nigel. "Imagined you between my legs, tearing the fabric, making a right mess of-"

He moaned as Nigel rammed into him. "Whore," Nigel said, but there was affection in the word. 

Adam grinned, preening, taking everything Nigel gave him, before adding, "I bought others."

" _Thrice-damned_ _whore_ with your _thrice-damned frocks_." Nigel turned Adam's head to ghost over his lips without actually kissing him, snapping his hips sharply to make Adam see the same stars he was.

"Yours," Adam managed before words didn't matter anymore. He rode out the speed, the depth, the pressure of the fucking. He caught Nigel's lips when he could, moaned his name when he couldn't.

He could feel his pleasure building, the _need_ to come, the want to. He purred Nigel's name again, pressing his forehead to the wall as he lost himself to it. He was uncaring for the mess he was making, that they both were.

"Mine," Nigel said, panting heavily as he fucked him. He repeated the word and cursed when he felt Adam clench around him and he rode him out before being overcome by his own orgasm. " _Fucking mine."_

Nigel trembled as he came, clutching Adam tight against his chest and letting out a low load. Drained, he pulled himself from the vampire and - far more gently than before - turned ADam back around to kiss him, the skirts of the dress falling back to the floor and brushing nicely down the from of Nigel's sensitive and spent cock as it hung free from his pants. He brought his hands up to hold Adam's face as he kissed him deeply, chest still heaving from the exertion.

Adam melted against him, opening his mouth to the kiss, sliding his arms beneath Nigel's to grasp at his shoulders and hold him close. Yes, he'd missed this, this desperation and ache they had for each other. He pulled Nigel nearer against him and caught his earlobe between his teeth to teasingly tug.

With the break in their kiss, Nigel said again, "You're all mine."

Adam wanted to tell him then.

He tried.

Instead he just managed to sigh Nigel's name.

Nigel picked him up, just enough to take his feet off the ground and carry him back to the bedroom. He wasn't sure he was ready for another round just yet, but made a note to remember what Bogdan had told him. He put Adam down near enough to the bed that he was able to sink down onto the edge. Nigel took off his pants entirely before flopping down gracelessly next to him.

"How long has it been since someone's had you like that?" he asked.

Adam laughed, reaching for Nigel and making no move to undress himself, not yet. "When was the last time you fucked me like that?" he asked instead, looking for the answer of _never_. But he knew what Nigel meant and he thought about it for a moment before saying, "Fifty years, at least. It's rare I can get someone to _fuck_ me."

Nigel gently tugged at the fabric of Adam's dress, encouraging him to rest on his chest and wrapped his arms around him when he complied. A smile spread across Nigel's face, self-satisfied.

"I don't see why," he said. "You're more than fuckable." He wasn't even sure if that was a word. He didn't care.

"Perhaps people see me as too dainty," Adam offered with a laugh. "They don't get to see me when I annoy the everloving hell out of them and bring them to wanting to fuck me senseless."

Adam nuzzled against the hair on Nigel's chest, breathing in his sweat, his warmth.

"I love when you fuck me," he said.

"Well, it seems a good way to shut you up," Nigel laughed. "Or at least, shut up the annoying, pompous side. I'm sure they could hear you on the other side of the city."

"Good," Adam pretend, arching his back to feel Nigel's fingers spread over it. He had been entirely shameless in his pleasure for a long time now. Few things could truly chasten him anymore. "The city needs a shakeup."

Another laugh from Nigel and he rolled them, hovering just over Adam in a tangle of skirts. He admired the faint flush that still lingered on Adam's cheeks, the way his curls fluffed out around his head like a dark halo, that mischievous glint in his brilliant eyes. Like this, he looked almost...

 _Human_.

But he never would be. Nigel kissed him, drowning his melancholy with the taste of Adam's mouth.

Adam kissed back, fingers spread against Nigel's cheeks.

"You know," he managed before he was kissed again. "Benny bought some lovely things for you. You'll look quite ravishing yourself. I'll need to take care not to damage them as soon as you have them on."

"You're the one who will need to take care, darling," Nigel said, running the backs of his fingers across his cheek. "You're the one who's been making a mess of my clothes during breakfast. Or from general slaughter."

Adam clicked his tongue but didn't deny it. He couldn't. Instead, he turned his face against Nigel's hand, enjoying the softness between them now. This he could do forever, he thought. Caressing and touching, learning another entirely by the way they feel, how their breath smells, how soft the hair on the back of their arms was.

"We'll keep the slaughter to a minimum," he promised. "Paint the town red in your sense, not mine."

A smirk. "Delightful," Nigel said. "But no dresses when I show you my side of the city. It may end in your kind of red."

Nigel was only half-joking. The way Adam looked when he came home tonight... Nigel was _certain_ he'd break the nose of any man who looked at him for too long. And look they would.

Adam smiled and nodded in agreement. That would be Nigel's night. He would do anything the man said, as much to keep them both safe as to show Nigel that Adam truly wanted to see _his_ world, as Nigel wanted to show it.

In a susurrus of fabric, Adam drew his knees up around Nigel and held him close that way. He was exhausted in the best possible way, fucked out and contented.

"You and Bogdan seemed to be getting on," he said, brow raising in amusement. 

"As much as two men who share a lover can," Nigel mused. He still felt irked about Bogdan, not quite happy that he had seen Adam like this. Lower even if they met on the docks. The possessiveness was taking hold again.

Adam reached to stroke Nigel's face, narrowing his eyes a little. " _Shared_ ," Adam emphasized. "No longer. I'm well aware of who I belong to."

Nigel let out a growl as he smirked and ducked to kiss Adam. "You'd better. Otherwise I'd be more than happy to remind you."

Adam grinned. "You'd be ready so soon?"

"I'm told you hardly need to rest."

Adam blinked, raising his eyes with a sigh and cursed softly. "I'd kill him if he weren't already dead."

Nigel laughed, kissing beneath Adam's jaw, tongue running over one of the marks peppering his jaw. "Let me thank him before you do."

Adam enjoyed the touches, arched into the kisses, the bites. He wriggled around to undo the dress. He wanted to feel Nigel against him, skin to skin, to feel his warmth, to feel his hands running over every inch of Adam he could reach.

"I wish the marks would stay," Adam told him honestly.

Nigel moved away, getting back to his feet to pull Adam up with him. They hadn't ruined the dress just yet, and it would be a shame to rip it now. Nigel was careful as he turned Adam around again to undo the back, sliding the fabric off his shoulders with care to leave it in a pool at his feet. He didn't speak until Adam was facing him again.

"As do I," he said. His conversation with Bénédicte echoing around his head. He meant it every time he said he would rather be dead than _living_ dead, but that didn't mean his feelings for Adam were any less than...

His heart felt like it was being yanked out the more he thought about it. So he stopped thinking about it. "I'll make them every nightfall if I have to."

Adam smiled, masking the sadness in it by wrinkling his nose, and he kissed Nigel chastely.

"Good," he said. "I'll hold you to it."

Then he just wrapped his arms around Nigel and held him, close, warm, intimate. He pushed up on his toes and pressed against him, from knees to chests.

Nigel picked him up again, bringing Adam level with him as they kissed, his arms tight around his slender waist. He muttered sweet nothings in Romanian when he set Adam down again, nuzzling fondly against his cheek.

"You know," he said after a moment, "I am itching to hear about your time on the docks." In truth, Nigel had _no_ interest in hearing those stories, but wanted to prove to himself to be the better partner than even the best Adam ever had.

Adam grinned, "Are you?"

When Nigel set him down again, Adam set a hand against his chin. He looked Nigel over, as he would have the men who had bought him back then, considering strengths, weaknesses, trying to gauge his tastes...

"I didn't always go in a gown," Adam told him, eyes flicking up to his. "Sometimes someone just wanted a boy to hurt."

Nigel's eyes narrowed sharply. "Often?" He didn't want an answer to that so he asked another as his hands rested on Adam's hops. "Were you turned? I hope those men got what was coming to them."

Nigel was only assuming it was just men who sought Adam, but he had seen many instances of the cruelty of women in the streets.

Adam soothed Nigel with a turn of his hips, a tilt of his head. He didn't need much to get back to that mindset he had never had to act to be that boy on the docks, it was just who he had wanted to be for a while.

"Often," he confirmed, savouring the tension that ran through Nigel. "I am much older than the years I worked on the docks. I wasn't turned there. And the men... got what they deserved once I had my fill of them, one way or another." He grinned.

Adam had never brought women back. From a young age he had been thought to protect and nurture, to see women as the softer, kinder, more sacred sex. He had been away from them from the time he was seven-years-old and only had an ideal in his mind of what they were. After being turned, he had finally had a chance to interact with women and while they could be cruel, he was never cruel to them. He was lucky, he supposed, that he preferred men. 

"I don't like that," Nigel said quietly, bringing his hand to Adam's face and kissing his cheek. He kept forgetting how many hundreds of years were between them. It made his head hurt trying to wrap his mind around it. But someone hurting Adam was even harder to accept. "I don't want to hurt you," he found himself saying.

"Love me, then," Adam said, turning his face against him. "There were two who wanted to rescue me, who wanted to take me away and take care of me."

Adam turned and caught Nigel's lips between his own, pulling back just enough to whisper against them.

"One was so gentle. He would lay me on the bed and kiss me all over. He would spread my legs and kiss against my thighs until I couldn't take it and then-"

Adam's tongue touched against Nigel's top lip as he smiled.

Nigel kissed him directly, not letting him go on as he drew him flush to his chest. He _would_ love him and he did. Adam could take care of himself. Nigel had even spoken to Bodgan about his love of being manhandled. So let him be manhandled.

Adam grinned at Nigel's discomfort and pulled back enough to murmur, "Lord, how I _moaned_ for him-"

Nigel growled and tossed him onto the bed. In half a breath he was on top of him. "You may have moaned for him," Nigel said deeply, "but I can make you scream."

He ground down against him, kisses all teeth and tongues.

"Just wait. I bet we'll see the claw marks you left against the wall come tomorrow."

Adam laughed, delighting in the thought. There had been another man who had been so kind to Adam. He would see him weekly and every week would worship him like a saint. Kisses and touches, gifts of silk, slow and desperately gentle sex that brought them both to aching... But now he has _this_. A man who was kind in his own way, possessive in the best way, and who Adam ached for every moment he was awake to think about it.

He wrapped his limbs around Nigel, coaxing him nearer, arching his neck for him to bite harder, mark further, _claim_.

Nigel was ready to go again and spat into his hand to pull himself so he could enter Adam again. Although still relatively okay from before, the intrusion had ADam hiss as he arched up against Nigel.

He kept his mouth firmly along Adam's throat, his collarbone, the edge of his shoulders. He kept his mouth anywhere except Adam's own, wanting the room to echo with the sounds he made. Wanting to hear his name.

And Adam spoke it. First in a whisper, worshipful and warm. He dropped his hands behind his head and grasped for the headboard, holding on, holding himself prone and vulnerable.

He said it again, as Nigel pushed deep into him and held tight, lips locked against the pale skin of Adam's shoulder sucking forth the blood he had within him to bruise up at the surface. 

A third time, when Nigel dropped a hand to between them to stroke him and Adam's voice rang loud, begging.

"That's it," Nigel breathed against his skin. "Let me hear you say my fucking name."

Each word was punctuated by a sharp thrust. He licked up to Adam's jaw, hovering just shy of close enough to kiss. The way Adam's mouth was open, his eyes shut, his face scrunched up in pleasure... It sent a shiver down Nigel's spine as a groan passed over his lips. How could _anyone_ get tired of fucking such a lovely thing? Corrupting such an innocent beauty - even if he wasn't so innocent in truth.

Adam lost himself to it entirely, to Nigel, to the fucking, to the moment.

They had this moment, together, now, _right now_.

"God, Nigel, fuck me..." he moaned, hair a mess against the pillow as he arched his back. His knuckles whitened but he didn't let go of the headboard, didn't reach to pull Nigel closer, didn't try to catch his lips.

He gave him the boy from the docks. Just as Nigel wanted.

Nigel pounded into him until he no longer could. Until sweat dripped from his forehead onto Adam's chest, until he groaned through his release, until he collapsed in a heap of heavy limbs and heavier breathing.

Beneath him Adam had writhed and moaned, crying out just the way Nigel had wanted him to. Filthy and profane and fucking _perfect_. He liked this side of the man, this side that let him tear through him while not losing the man who had come to kiss him at twilight before breakfast. A man willing to ride him into the abyss yet be fucked against the wall in a dress like a common whore.

 _A man_.

Nigel realized for the first time he was thinking of Adam as more than a vampire. More than his master. And it made him draw Adam closer.

Adam cursed, a lilting stream of words against Nigel's skin as he worked his fingers free of the bed and into Nigel's hair instead. He was exhausted, worn out. He wanted nothing more than to sleep with Nigel heavy against him like this. 

"God, you're beautiful," Adam told him, grinning when Nigel mumbled something unintelligible against his chest. Adam thought a moment, let his mind wander and chose a language he knew Nigel wouldn't know.

 _"I don't know what to do with the fact that I love you_ ," Adam whispered, old Norse heavy against his tongue from lack of use. " _I'd turn the world inside out to find a way for this to work on our terms_."

Nigel didn't respond to the words, only catching half of the strange syllables anyway as she drifted off to sleep to the feeling of Adam's hands in his hair and some muttered Romanian nonsense on his tongue.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for abuse, violence, and suicidal ideation.
> 
> Translation notes at the end.

The sun was still up when Nigel woke, Adam still in a dead slumber next to him. He kissed his forehead before getting up, careful to slip through the heavy curtains of the bed that faced away from the windows - just in case. 

He washed, taking his time, and dressed in one of his surviving sets of English clothing. Nigel had yet to see what Adam and Bénédicte had picked out for him as the bags were still waiting to be unpacked by the door, but he figured he'd find out soon enough once the pair of them woke. Nigel found himself wondering how long the girl would be staying with them. Even Nigel had to admit he was coming to enjoy her company, but he couldn't see that bastard Sven taking a liking to her absence. Especially if it meant she was here with Adam.

Clean and clothes, Nigel sprawled out on the couch, bringing one of Adam's many books with him and flipping through it. He wasn't a big reader, especially of books in English, but there was a comfort to holding a book. He always enjoyed partaking in the arts, finding it soothing to the soul. He admired the woodcut illustrations in many of the books, the watercolours in others. Music for the eyes.

His eyes watered a little at the thought and he blinked away the tears. Music made him think of Gabi. Things had changed and he felt betrayal in his soul at the way they had. He missed her more than anything. That fiery woman who was the reason he had fought so hard to stay alive. And yet here he was, sharing a bed with the very monster who took him away from her...

That first night in the basement was one of the few memories Nigel had retained during his two years in confinement. It was dark, his muscles ached from the strain of fighting off so many of the Damned, his skin clammy and chilled from the cool dampness of the basement cell he had been confined to. In the years he had been hunting vampires, he had only ever heard of these vast, maze-like holds beneath estates. He hadn't thought those rumours false, but he hadn't quite believed them. Maybe if he had, he wouldn't be trapped in one right now, openly bleeding and tense with anxiety brought on from all the waiting for what was to come.

He was going to die, that much was clear, but he didn't know when or how. Would he starve to death? Be eaten alive? Suffer the pain of sepsis in his system and expire from that? Escape was always a hope, far at the back of Nigel's mind, but it wasn't something he was about to waste physical strength on when he had so little of it left.

People _had_ escaped from these places before, otherwise there would not have been stories of the, but...

Every sound made Nigel tense, shift to press harder against the wall behind him. Footsteps, heavy breathing, whines of pain or an occasional scream... If he wasn't truly terrified to his bones, he would think the sounds were falsified for effect. He knew he was the only one of his party to have been taken - thank _God_ they hadn't caught Gabi - but certainly, there couldn't be so many down here with him?

He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing. He could get out of this. Survive the night and get out. He needed to keep his strength up and then he could fight his way out. If he could stay strong enough to fight whoever opened the door in front of him, he could get out of here. He knew it.

Nigel let out a deep breath through his mouth, not quite a sigh but close. He was kidding himself. But what else was there to do? He couldn't give up on Darko. He couldn't give up on Gabi. She had looked so scared when he'd been captured. Nigel had never seen her look _more_ scared in the entire time they had known each other. She probably believed him to be dead already. Nigel refused to live up to that expectation.

The heavy door of his cell creaked open and Nigel opened his eyes. He was out of time.

The man - vampire _, monster_ \- before him looked like a dream; too beautiful to be so deadly with his crystal blue eyes and luscious dark curls of hair. Nigel felt his stomach flip, his teeth clench and his lips draw back in as close a defensive gesture as he could manage. The vampire looked on impassively, taking Nigel in before _moving_.

It was less than a breath between him being at the door and then directly in front of Nigel, and the hunter cursed before he could stop himself.

"Such a filthy mouth for such a pretty thing," the monster whispered, eyes damn near angelic as he looked over Nigel. "Not a good start."

Nigel's eyes narrowed and he spat at the vampire's feet. "Bad starts only lead to bad ends."

"Manners tend to lessen the pain in getting to the end," the other countered. He reached to run cool knuckles down Nigel's face, catching his chin with the other when Nigel tried to turn away. "I might keep you."

Nigel spat again, this time in his face.

"I'd rather fucking die."

He actually meant it. He'd rather be six feet under ground before he would cater to the whims of this ponce. This pretty-boy predator. He'd find a way to kill himself if he felt at risk of falling under whatever spells the Damned worked on their pets.

The smile monster offered would have been kind on a human, would have been normal. But on him...

"Then I can _promise_ you, sweet thing, that I won't let you. Not today. Not in a month or a _year_..." He laughed, a wistful and quiet sound, and he sank his fangs into Nigel's flesh with pressure enough for Nigel to _taste_ the pain.

There was a moment, a brief moment, where the pain had Nigel feeling like he was actually dying. The lightness of his begin, the way his breathing hitched, the way his head beat so hard against his ribs...

And then he was let go, dropped against the wall and panting heavily as the vampire adjusted his cuffs absently by the door. It was as if nothing had transpired, but the message was clear.

"Rest well," he beast said.

Nigel watched him go, shivering as his vision faltered and his throat grew warm and wet with the blood that trailed from the bite like a river. He was not a religious man, but he prayed right there no the filthy floor of his basement cell. He prayed for Gabi. He prayed for death to come swiftly. But, most of all, he prayed to be the one to ring the last remaining dregs of life from that fucking vampire's neck.

It felt like eternity until the vampire came back. _That_ vampire. Others came and went, leaving Nigel weak and shaking, marked by hot punctures all over his skin. He did his best to fight them, but that only resulted in being strung up in chains that dug into his skin, only released when he was too weak to rebel and was granted food and water.

When at last _that_ vampire returned, he considered Nigel, moved near him but not close enough to touch. Not that it would matter. Nigel could barely hold a cup of water, could hardly stand let alone fell someone so full of life and inhuman strength. After a moment, he was approached. When the vampire touched him this time, it was to examine the marks left on him by others. He ran a cold finger across the wounds, and deliberately pressed roughly against the marks he, himself, had made against the human's throat, though he doubted the man remembered it was him.

"Immature, uncultured thing," he muttered, leaning in to lick against fresh punctures on Nigel's shoulder, pointedly ignoring the should of disgust Nigel made. When he pulled away, they were already fading. _Healing_. But then he made new ones.

" _Dracu de pe, vampir rahat_ ," Nigel muttered between laboured breathes. He couldn't think in English anymore, let alone speak it. He had never been in so much pain in his life. The way the vampires were toying with him, it wasn't a pain that grew numb as time went on.

No. This was a pain that built. That _burned_.

" _Opri_ ," he choked out. It wasn't a plead but it wasn't strong enough to be a demand. He just wanted it to _stop_.

He felt cool fingers against his chin, turning him with surprising gentleness to bring them face to face.

"What is it that you want to stop?" he asked, his Romanian just as soft as his English, an accent so slight it might as well not have been there. "Tell me and I may consider it."

Without the strength to glare, Nigel's head bobbed like a drunkard's. "Kill me," he said in Romanian. "Do it or I'll find a way to do it myself."

The fact this thing spoke his language infuriated Nigel. He put his all into his muscles, trying to will his arm to lash out at the monster who was holding him up. He couldn't move so much as a centimetre.

The other just blinked at him, a mockery of pity in his gaze as he drew his fingers over Nigel's lips before leaning in to kiss him. Nigel jerked, a helpless sound escaping him when he couldn't move away from this either, couldn't escape this humiliating violation... And then, a taste he couldn't place, one he couldn't explain, and his mind cleared, his eyes widened, his limbs shivered and he was able to move, just enough to shove a fist into the centre of the thing's chest and pull their lips apart.

"You can't. I won't allow you to."

"Watch me," Nigel spat back in English, blood coming out with saliva. "Or watch me wring your fucking neck."

The vampire smiled again, showing his teeth, and turned to tilt his head just enough to reveal his throat to Nigel. He waited, curling a lip between his teeth, raising his eyes to the ceiling, before returning them to Nigel and standing up again.

"I am here, ready to watch you try it."

Nigel did his best, the manacles at his wrists digging sharply at his skin as he tugged, fingers spread like claws. There was no way he could possibly reach, but that didn't stop him from trying.

The vampire watched him struggle, watching as the bruises swelled against Nigel's wrists. He waiting long enough to make sure no skin would break, long enough for Nigel to grow defeated, before leaving again.

When next he returned, Nigel was bound with rope.

"Do you know why you're here?" he asked, an unusual start to their meeting.

Nigel wasn't sure if it had been weeks or months since he had last looked at that pretty, monstrous face and wanting to cave it in. "Do you think I give a fuck about your motivations?" he snapped.

Nigel had an inkling it had something to do with the target he had slain with Gabi and Darko. Unless this vampire was a particularly sick fuck - which was also a possibility - this felt like a drawn-out revenge scheme.

"I'm sure you don't," he replied. "But I certainly care about yours. You took away a friend I was rather partial to. I want to know why."

Nigel laughed, "Why? Does the farmer ask his fucking cats why they go after the rats? Or why the spider eats the fly?"

"So you killed indiscriminately?" the vampire confirmed.

" _Extermination_ doesn't need motivation."

"Funny, I thought _we_ were considered the predators."

Nigel rolled his eyes.

"You notice we only took you," he continued. "I could have easily asked for all you little hunters, but I asked for the one who ended my friend's life." Nigel tried to speak and the vampire continued to keep him from doing so, "Do you think that if we had either of them, they would be swallowing _away_ from you? Had they been here, you would be watching them die as I speak. Because that's what _you_ think we do."

"Hellspawn with a taste for blood deserve no mercy. Missing women, missing _children_ , have only increased in numbers since the discovery of your kind in our city. All we're doing is evening out those losses." Nigel believed firmly in his convictions. Vampire slayers were taking care of the vermin poisoning Bucharest with lies and bloodshed. 

What he _didn't_ believe was this vampire. Even if the idea of Gabi being far from this place eased some of the tension in his chest. 

"Do you know their names?" the vampire asked, easing into a crouch so he was at Nigel's eye level. "The women and children. Do you know their names? I highly doubt you do. The one you killed had a name." He tilted his head, narrowing his eyes. "A poison is only effective if it targets the vermin responsible for the losses you claim. Besides you, none who cross this threshold are taken by force. Spit your vitriol at me, curse me all you wish, but it hardly matters. It should matter to _you_ , dear hunter, who your targets are lest you become what you seek to kill."

Nigel was quiet for a moment, letting his tense muscles relax as he debated on calling the vampire's bluff.

He decided it was.

"You won't turn me," he smirked. "You want me half-conscious at worst, but _alive_. Turning me would spoil your sick sense of fun." He let his words hand in the hair before he shifted from his place on the ground and breathed a laugh. "As for names, do _you_ know the names of those you've killed? Surely a poof like yourself wasn't always master of the house. That's a lot of names to remember."

"We would be here a long time were I to recite them all," the vampire said, but he didn't push it again. "And you are wrong. I won't turn you because it would give you what you want. The strength to break free and seek out your own death. I told you already, I will not let you die. I am a man of my word."

"As am I," Nigel returned. "But you are no man."

The vampire smirked.

"I'm bored of you," Nigel said after a moment of staring each other down, "so why don't you run back to whatever silk-covered parlour you came from."

"Velvet, actually," the vampire said, absently checking his nails as he reached for the door. "Silk stains awfully and it would be such a waste."

Another week, another month, another however long before the vampire returned, another clinical glance over Nigel's prone form before gracefully sinking to his knees beside him. He looked pathetic, unbound in his poor state. 

Nigel's breathing was shallow as he waited. He had come to tell who was in his cell based on the energy in the air and it crackled most when this prick was near. The vampire leaned down, closer, _closer_ -

Nigel lashed out, quick as a snake and gripped the vampire by the throat. He used the surprise to his advantage, bringing up his other hand to join the first and squeezing with all of the energy he had in reserve. His breathing bordered on man as he squeezed. Vampires didn't need to breathe, but even with his basic understanding of anatomy, Nigel knew the right pressure could burst blood vessels and even burst eyes entirely. That's all he needed to buy himself some time to get out of here.

After the initial shock of the attack, the struggle was brief. Nigel held as long as he could, digging his fingers into the flesh beneath him, pushing with nails, with muscles, as hard as he could to hurt as much as he could. The creature beneath him hardly saw the lack of air as an inconvenience but it was uncomfortable so he shifted, squirmed, and eventually caught Nigel against the side with a sharp strike that left him winded.

He held firm and the vampire struck again. It was only after a third blow, hard beneath his ribs to the point of drawing stars behind his eyes, that Nigel's fingers loosened and the vampire scrambled out from under him, glaring with his teeth bared and eyes brighter than Nigel had ever seen them.

He coughed and tasted blood. This was it then. Blissful, welcome death.

For a moment, neither moved, but then the vampire stood, reaching for the door and calling in a language Nigel didn't know. Within seconds there was another. And another. And another. Six of them in total.

Sure, Nigel hoped, _surely_ he wouldn't last through six. He felt a weird calm wash over him, a noise like rushing water in his ears as the came from him as if in slow motion. The head of the coven watched from the doorway, not breaking their eye contact and Nigel smirked as he saw the faint bruises beginning to form along the pale skin of the vampire's throat. _Check_.

"I don't care what you do to him," he heard the vampire rasp, his usual pretty voice reduced to a grate. "But don't you _dare_ let him die."

When Nigel finally awoke, he had no idea how long it had been and he ached with a pain so terrible, it surpassed his tired muscles. Managing to turn his head, he examined the dozens of marks across his skin. He looked like he'd fallen victim of a pox from hell with so many open sores coating his skin. 

He had been _so close_ and he still failed. He grit his teeth and moaned in pain as he brought his arms to his chest, curled into a fetal position on the cold stone floor. There were wounds surrounded by fist-sized bruises coating his wrists and he picked at them slowly, painfully, begging his body to open the wounds wider, to encourage a bleed out, but nothing came.

For several days he wasn't fed. No water either. He hoped it would be the end of him, that maybe he could _finally_ die. But then there was food, and murky water and he gave in. Devouring the food and chugging the water with abandon, but there was that taste... That taste from when the vampire had kissed him and his energy had somehow returned.

The more he drank the water, the stronger he felt but the pain was still there. His treacherous body refused to give in. The more he tried to damage himself, the faster his attempts healed. It took him what felt akin to a week to realize that whatever he was drinking, whatever was making the water murky, was reviving him. He had only assumed it was dirty from the state of his prison. 

He didn't touch the water again until it was clear, and even then, only in the tiniest of sips, watching with paranoid attention to see if it was restoring him like something from the fountain of fucking youth. Nigel refused to eat again as well, until it was forced into him, and he did his best to throw it back up a soon as he was able to get his fingers to his down his throat. It meant he was forced to eat, to drink, more often, but that didn't stop him. The feedings on him didn't stop either, although never more than two vampires came for him at the same time. He always fought against them, no matter how weak he felt himself getting. He had to keep trying.

Every time his consciousness faded, he thought of Gabriella. Of her smile and her laugh. He wouldn't let himself forget her. It was for her that he fought so hard. For her that he refused to live like a slave. Always and forever for her.

He didn't see his vampire nemesis again for a long time, but had learned the ponce's name was Adam. The others spoke of him mostly with reverence, but some were indifferent. All of them were respectful either way. When Nigel did come face to face with Adam once again, the vampire approached fearlessly, kneeling by Nigel as he had the night he was attacked.

"Congratulations," he told him. "You've made it through eight months of hell."

Nigel didn't dignify him with a reaction, physical or verbal. He knew that was what Adam wanted. He didn't even glare.

 _Just tell me what you fucking want, you sick fuck,_ he thought angrily.

"Shall I drink to another eight months?" Adam asked, considering, watching Nigel deliberately try to ignore him. "Or do you want to change the narrative? I'm sure you're as sick of all this as I am."

"I'd rather-"

"I don't want to turn you, you stupid man," Adam muttered.

"Go fuck yourself," Nigel growled. He couldn't help it. This _thing_ just got under his skin to a degree that made him want to rip it all off. "Keep me down here as long as you fucking want. I'm not the one getting bored."

"You're a speck on my timeline, Nigel," Adam reminded him. "If I were bored with you, you'd not see me again. I'm simply offering you a chance to make this hell somewhat more habitable. Keep your food down, keep more of your own blood inside you."

"Forgive my choice in words," Nigel said with the roll of his eyes. "You're the only _sick_ of this setup. I happen to enjoy coating your minions in vomit."

Adam hummed and stood up again. He didn't offer anything else, didn't hurt Nigel, didn't taunt him, he simply left, closing the door behind him.

Nigel didn't see him again for two months, according to his next greeting. Then again is six. Again in four more.

"You could use a shave," Adam told him, tone amused. He had taken to sitting in the doorway now, long enough that Nigel knew if he didn't converse with him he would be talked _at_ instead. The topics Adam so deliberately chose either bored him to tears or angered him beyond words.

Nigel tugged at the freshly tied ropes that strapped him to the wall so he was now permanently sitting on the floor facing the door. He assumed it was to keep him from vomiting.

"Forgive me for not having use of my hands," he said mockingly. "Or silver sharp enough to shave." 

"You'll not trust anyone else to do it? I know they have asked."

"So that's what they were asking."

"Does it matter? Your immediate reply is usually either 'Go fuck yourself' or a variation thereof in, so far, three different languages."

Nigel only smirked.

"What would you do if I gave you a razor?"

"Just a razor?"

"I'm not a savage. I'd provide shaving cream," Adam replied blithely. "Would you first try to kill yourself with it or me?"

Nigel thought about that a moment. He'd sworn to himself he'd kill Adam, but if he did that he still might not make it out alive. To kill himself would be to free himself from it all entirely. Either way, he wouldn't see Gabi again.

"I don't know," he answered.

"At least you're being honest with me now," Adam said, sitting on the floor and stretching his legs out in front of him. The motion was so bored, so human, it made Nigel feel uncomfortable. "Shall I have someone bring it down then and we can find out?"

Nigel shrugged, "It's your throat or mine. Are you willing to make that bet?"

"It won't kill me if it's mine. I'll turn you if it's yours. Either way, I win, so is it a bet _you_ are willing to make?"

"You're asking a man who has even less than nothing to lose," Nigel said. "You said it yourself, you turn me and it's a one-way trip into the sun."

"If I let you out," Adam reminded him. "If you turn, you fall to the whims of your sire."

"Stalemate," Nigel smirked."So where do we go from here, my dear _clopotul bisericii_?"

Adam gestured to Nigel's arms. "You want those ropes off your skin?" he asked.

"But your toys did such a good job re-tying them."

"The ones I toy with don't come down this far." A pause. "Perhaps some clean fucking clothes."

Nigel shrugged again. He'd lost his shirt months ago, and his pants could hardly be considered underthings having been torn to pieces that he was fairly sure were rotting away against his legs. New clothes would only get dirty. What was the point of wasting good fabric?

Adam considered Nigel a moment before pushing himself to stand and come nearer. He didn't bother to unit the ropes, opting for tearing them from the wall to leave the knots for Nigel to deal with himself. He stood and approached the closed door, offering Nigel his back - seemingly uncaring if Nigel were to use this chance to lunge at him - until he reached the heavy wood and leaned against it.

Nigel remained where he was. It took time for him to work himself free of the ropes and Adam watched him like a cat the entire time. Nigel's skin had grown pale from being down here so long, the bruises more pronounced against his nearly emaciated torso. Bits, hits, rope burns, they all stuck out like a rainbow of pain across his skin. He stretched enough to feel tension without risk of tearing the weakened muscles.

When he was still again, Adam left, closing the door behind him.

Hours later, when Nigel awoke from his usual sleep, Adam wasn't there, but a set of clothes was. Delivered with his food and crystal clear water.

Things had changed after all that. The dynamic had shifted and now Nigel was here, sprawled on the very velvet he had mocked as silk. He sighed as he set the book down and ran his hands over his face. If only he could forget all of it. His time in the basement... his life before... If it all went away he could-

"Are you unwell?"

Nigel's head snapped up, and he shook it as he saw Adam approaching. He couldn't meet his eye line. Not yet. "It's nothing."

"It's never nothing with you humans. So bloody complicated," Adam murmured, catching a yawn against the back of his hand. He could see Nigel's tension, could feel his apprehension and wondered if it was to do with that girl again. He supposed it did.

Nigel shook his head. There was something in his memories that was getting to him, but it slipped away from him now. It didn't matter anyway. Things were different. _Entirely_ different. He stood and drew Adam into a hug, resting his chin on top of the vampire's head.

"Even us humans think we're too complicated," he said. "Believe me."

Adam wrapped himself around Nigel and hummed. He didn't say anything for a while before he offered, "Coffee? You'll need it when Benny wakes and decides to start a fashion parade through the lobby."

Nigel groaned and nuzzled into Adam's curls. "Clothes are the _last_ thing I want to think about right now," he grumbled.

"You certainly weren't complaining yesterday," Adam countered.

"If memory serves me right, I was too busy fucking you senseless to complain."

Adam grinned and kissed against Nigel's chest, pressing his hand against his pulse before moving away. "Humor her. I'll show you another dress of mine if you're good."

"And what will you show me if I'm _not_ good?" Nigel teased, moving back into Adam's personal space to kiss his cheek. 

"Sven in the dress instead," Adam replied. He tried his best to keep a straight face, but couldn't get the whole sentence out without laughing. 

"I would _love_ to see you try that, darling," Nigel laughed alongside him.

He wasn't sure he'd genuinely head Adam laugh before and it made his cheeks flush. It was a beautiful sound.

"Although," he said as they're laughter quieted, "speaking of Sven, does he know that his right-hand little girl has been with us ever since he attacked you?"

Adam shrugged. "For the safety of all involved, I do suggest we stay clear of that like of questioning. Not only will she have your throat in her hands if she heard you call her a little girl, but Benny has her freedom in his house. If he wants her back, he'll send for her." His smile grew mischievous, though. "I'm not sure he completely appreciates what he did when he brought her into his sphere."

"Oh?" Nigel said, quirking an eyebrow. "Think your friend bit off more than he could chew?"

Bénédicte did seem like she could be a lot to handle. Too young in appearance to be taken seriously as the one in charge, but too vicious in temper to be expected to follow orders. The scabs on Nigel's cheek were proof enough of that.

"I think my _friend_ found a safe place to keep her alive," Adam replied, amused. "Sven is young, relatively speaking, he still has grandiose plans for the story of his house. Benny seeks only to survive whatever is it the next tidal wave carries."

Beyond the doors, they could hear conversation, a young voice and Bogdan's. Adam grinned, reaching to pull Nigel into a deep kiss just as the doors opened. Nigel knew what Adam was doing and smiled against his lips, tugging him closer as Béné entered made her disgust at the sight clear.

"Adam, you bought all those clothes last night and yet here you are _again_ in that filthy robe," the girl scolded. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't burn it, and you, along with it."

Nigel broke away from the kiss but still held onto Adam as he turned to face the girl. "I might have something to say about that," he smirked.

Bénédicte crossed her arms, "Just because you're fucking him for the time being does not mean you get first crack at killing him. If anything, it pushes you to the back of the line."

Adam snorted, taking Nigel's hand to kiss the center of his palm.

"I meant about the robe," Nigel said.

Adam rolled his eyes at the pair of them. "I was waiting for you to do the honours and dress him first," he said. "See? I could have taken it upon myself to dress us both up, but I waited to be sure we would match. I am a good friend, in a good, well-loved robe."

Nigel frowned. "But I'm already dressed." It was such a juvenile statement only made more so by the look on his face.

"In old clothing," Béné said with a smirk of her own. "I found much more darling things for you to wear, _mon chouchou_."

Adam snorted, giving Nigel an appreciative once-over and mumbled a reprimand to Béné in French before stepping aside to let her work her magic. She always had impeccable taste in clothing, her own _and_ others'. And it was time to witness a master at work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation note:
> 
>  _ **Dracu de pe, vampir rahat**_ :: Fuck off, you vampire shit.
> 
>  _ **Opri**_ :: Stop
> 
>  _ **Clopotul bisericii**_ :: Literally means a chuch bell, but in the 19th century was a way of saying someone never shuts up.


	15. Chapter 15

By Adam's request - demand, really - there were English styles among the Romanian and French as Béné began to empty the bags she and Adam had brought home the night before. Nigel had never seen so many clothes in his life. He had no words for them, really. He didn't much care for clothes, didn't see the point in wearing them most days, let along taking care of them. But even a man such as himself had to admire the range of colours, of fabrics, the intricate patterning that must have made some poor woman go damn near blind.

He cursed in Romanian - there was nothing more he could say - and ran a hand through his messy hair.

"Please don't make him parade every single outfit for you," Adam murmured, standing close to Béné as he watched Nigel take this all in. "He isn't me, and I doubt he'd enjoy it as much. Perhaps find something beautiful for him and, after a bath, I'll put him in it."

"If you take him to the bath, you two won't leave it for hours. I have _things_ to do this evening." Béné complained.

Adam snorted, shook his head, and looked up a Nigel who looked back helplessly.

"Just one, _ma cherie._ He looks far too overwhelmed as it is. And nothing _French_. Let him get used to having nice things before he has to work for hours to get into them."

Nigel was barely listening to the two vampires conspire against his wardrobe. He still felt off from his reminiscing. "I'd rather just be in the bath," he muttered.

Bénédicte rolled her eyes. "Just come over here so we can get you dressed _properly_ and I can go about my business."

"Or," Nigel countered, "you could go about your business and this can wait another century or two."

"No," Adam and Béné answered in tandem. Both looked far too amused for his liking. Adam, he knew, would at least tease and distract him, but Béné looked like a cruel school mistress ready to whip him into a shape of _her_ liking.

"Make it something he can take me out in," Adam continued to Béné.

"Dressed as what?" Béné asked, eyebrow tilting. 

"A vagrant," Adam replied dryly. "We're going about the town, and I'm not about to wander his domain dressed as I usually do, Benny, I'm not an idiot. Find him something to make him feel regal in his own right."

Nigel crossed his arms, looking between them with annoyance. "I'm not a vagrant. In case night of you noticed, I _had_ a home before I was here. Aside from that, when was the last time either of you saw me begging?"

Adam's eyes glinted devilishly and Nigel cut him off.

"Don't you _dare_ fucking answer the way you are wanting to," he growled, pointing at Adam in a scolding manner. "I don't beg for money."

"Semantics," Béné said, waving a hand at him dismissively. "Besides I would hardly waste gold on clothing suitable for the homeless."

"I simply meant I can't dress as I usually do, given where you promised to take me," Adam told him softly. "You told me yourself I should dress... modestly."

"I'm not sure you can."

"He can't," Béné confirmed. "But I can help with that. _You_ , _cher,_ need to understand that _richness_ is in the carriage as much as the wrapping. I could dress you in the finest silks, and no one would notice if you keep your gait and mannerisms. You're lucky you haven't got memories of palaces and temples like Adam and I do. For half a century he couldn't stop waving his hand a certain way because he'd done it for so long. The gesture would have had him on the guillotine in France."

"That's why I went to England," Adam replied shortly.

Nigel looked himself over. He could tuck his shirt in perhaps, but otherwise, he felt pretty put together for once. He even wore one of the less wrinkled English outfits for Adam's sake.

"Remind me what's wrong with what I'm currently wearing?" He should probably just let the pair of them argue about the French Revolution for the rest of the evening and slipped out the door, but Nigel felt his honour was at stake. 

Adam shook his head, mouthed _nothing_ even as Béné began to make a list of precisely what was wrong with it, from the colour to the tailoring. Words like _outdated_ and _low-class_ were constant on her tongue. Nigel's brows furrowed. He'd never thought this much about clothing before. It seemed far too exhausting.

And then Béné and Adam were off again, arguing in terms Nigel didn't even understand anymore, _atelier_ and others he couldn't even pronounce, let alone remember. In the end, it seemed they had agreed on a few things: nothing ostentatious, new boots, a longer jacket than normal, and darker, moodier tones rather than the brash colours Adam himself preferred.

Béné began tossing clothes about, looking for just the thing while Adam returned to Nigel's side. He wrapped his arm around Adam's shoulders and pulled him close.

"You had better wear the most promiscuous dress you purchased," he whispered.

"I thought you said no dresses."

"I changed my mind. I want you looking better than a whore in her boudoir if you expect me to go through all of this before I even think of where I'm taking you."

"I have just the one," Adam murmured, pleased. He draped himself against Nigel and lazily agreed or countered the suggestions made from across the room. Béné would choose when she wanted in the end, regardless of what Adam said.

Nigel let out a low growl and kissed Adam's temple.

" _Voila_ ," Bénédicte announced, clapping her hands together. She folded the clothes over her arm and skipped across the room toward Nigel's bedroom. " _Allons-y_ ," she said with a demanding air and Nigel flashed Adam a concerned look before he followed.

Nigel obeyed most of the girl's commands, letting her dress him until...

"Adam!" Béné yelled as she stormed back through the door. "Control your pet!"

The girl had a red mark on her cheek that only briefly caught Adam's attention before he was drawn to Nigel. A bruise the size of a small hand coated his own face and Nigel rubbed at it angrily. The bruise was quickly filed away as Adam's attention was once again moved towards Nigel's clothes. The man wore light grey trousers tucked into dark, knee-high boots fit for riding as well as walking. A white shit was buttoned almost all the way up beneath a waistcoat to match the trousers. All of it was topped by the heavy velvet of a maroon oat that came mid-thigh in length.

"Jesus Christ," Adam breathed as he stared. Nigel looked so handsome it was unbelievable, and for a few moments, he could do nothing. Just watch, wide-eyed, and take everything in. The way the pants hugged his legs, the sheen of the new boots, the _coat_... Adam felt the urge to wear that coat with nothing underneath for Nigel to wake up to.

"Don't believe a single word this little brat says," Nigel growled in annoyance, pulling back Adam's attention.

"Why would I lie about you _assaulting me_ over a _cravat_?!"

"Because it's horseshit! _You_ attacked _me_!"

"I, uh..." Adam swallowed. "Does he need a cravat?"

Bénédicte cursed in French, throwing up her arms. "Of course he does! It's a part of the outfit! But that is not the point here, Adam!"

"Then what is?"

" _He hit me_! Do something about it!"

"Oh please," Nigel said, crossing his arms. "It's not like I hurt you. I thought you didn't want to be treated like a child."

"Adam!"

"Honestly, what would you suggest I do?" Adam asked. "Spank him? I did warn you this wouldn't be easy, love. He's not a doll." He could barely keep his smile down as he watched his friend puff up in displeasure.

Béné cursed again. "I hope you get caught in the sun," she said to Adam before looking to Nigel and spitting, "Ungrateful pest."

Without another word, the girl stomped out of the flat and the air was heavy with silence until the door slammed shut. Nigel took one look at Adam before they were both laughing.

"Spanking? Really?" Nigel could barely get the words out around his laughter. "You cruel fucker."

"I panicked," Adam laughed, bringing a hand to his face. "I don't tend to deal out punishments very often, but you've seen how messy that gets." He stepped closer, drawing his hands against the clothing Béné had managed to get Nigel to wear. He made an appreciative sound low in his throat. 

The noise didn't get past Nigel and he smirked. "Happy to see me?" he teased, holding Adam back just enough that he couldn't kiss him.

"I can't decide if I like you best in beautiful clothes or without any at all. You cut quite the silhouette."

"I think I like _you_ best half-dressed." Nigel's hand worked it's way up into Adam's curls, tugging his head back as he ghosted over his lips. "Are you sure you want to go out? We could always stay in and you can do more than look."

Adam leaned closer, adding pressure to where Nigel held him, and smiled. "I want to spend the night with you," he said honestly. "Where that is in here or out there is up to our mood."

Nigel went to kiss him, but ducked at the last second to kiss beneath his jawline. "I think it's time to get the hell out of here," he said against Adam's skin before pulling away and taking Adam's hand. He dropped it a moment later. "That being said, _you_ need to get dressed first."

Adam laughed, "And if I don't feel like doing so?"

"Well, I'll just have to leave you here and not return until the sun is well in the sky."

"Monstrous," Adam replied with a smile.

Nigel winked. "Just be sure it's not too flashy. Last thing we need is to have some unlucky bastard trying to mug us." As much as Nigel would enjoy picking a fight in front of Adam, he knew an attempted mugging would only result in a bloodbath that would ruin their outfits. That wouldn't do for tonight.

Adam nodded and stepped away to get ready. He took his sweet time and when he was finished, he emerged from his room in dark pants and a slightly worn shirt under one of Nigel's jackets that sat large over Adam's slim form. He didn't comb his hair either. He didn't do anything but grin and hold his arms out so Nigel could inspect him.

"Not the look of a whore like I requested, but still more than fit for peasant debauchery," Nigel grinned. He wanted to run his hands through Adam's hair, but he needed to adhere to his own boundaries for their evening. 

"I thought I might save _that_ for another time," Adam smiled.

The two of them went downstairs and Nigel kept his distance despite how his fingers twitched for Adam's hand. "No carriage," he said to Adam as the got outside. "We'll walk and hail a cab if we have to, but no flash of any kind. We're going somewhere... nicer... but it's hardly fancy."

"Shall I return the gold for silver then?"

Nigel smirked, "No. It'll come in handy for taking everyone else's. Oh, and you might want to speak Romanian when we arrive."

Gambling was something Nigel had particular skill in. Despite his statue, he was rather quick when it came to sleight of hand and there were few who were clever enough to catch him at his tricks. The more gold he had to work with, the more people would pay attention, but there's where more rounds of drinks for the table came in handy.

"Rules," Nigel continued. "No touching, affectionate or otherwise."

Adam gave him a quick look, but didn't protest. He knew those of Nigel's world wouldn't take kindly to them.

They walked on in silence for a moment before Nigel asked, "Does whiskey taste like dust to you? I know you can taste it when I have it, but is it strong enough for you to taste on its own?"

Adam nodded, "Like dust. But you needn't worry about that. I can hold my own around mortals. I've been around them a long time, Nigel, I shan't embarrass you." In truth, he was excited. Adam hadn't been out among people for a long time, more by his own choice, but going out with Nigel brought back that childish thrill to his bones.

Nigel flushed a little and looked at his feet as they walked. _Of course_ Adam would know how to blend in. _Stupid_.

"How many people do you want to dupe this evening?"

Looking to the stars above them, Nigel said, "As many as want to keep the games going." He smiled. "With all the clothes you bought, I'm sure you need to top up your account."

Adam's grin was bright and sharp before he tempered it to look entirely human. No sign of his dangerous teeth, no suggestions of otherworldliness. He pushed his hands into his pockets and sidled up to walk alongside Nigel but not touch.

"When did you first start going out?" he asked. "Were you young?"

Also tucking his hands into his pockets, Nigel shrugged. "I don't really know. I've been on my own for a long time."

He'd been kicked out for the trouble he kept finding and even Gabi's father had done his damnedest to get rid of Nigel. It hadn't worked, but it had put him through the wringer to say the very least.

"I've been going to gambling halls since I was barely a man. And I'd fight any barkeeper who tried to throw me out." He smiled sadly but his pride stayed bright in his eyes.

Adam glanced at him. He could image it. Nigel was hardly old now, but Adam wondered how much brighter, sharper, brattier a younger version of him would have been.

"I've never been," Adam said. "Out, I mean. Gambling, drinking, none of that. I was cloistered away for a decade and then... There wasn't much of an opportunity to experience my budding adolescence," he grinned, despite it all. "All of my experiences are a part of my afterlife. You're showing me a whole new world."

"You're joking," Nigel said, giving Adam a look of disbelief. Even the dock girls were taken to bars every now and again by someone with deep pockets. Surely the prettier boys had been taken, too.

Adam shook his head. "We were raided when I was seventeen, and for two years I was at the mercy of whatever man kept me. When I was turned, I started to explore, but drink has no taste for me and gambling never interested me." Adam grinned as he looked to the sky, "Whoring, however, was a _pleasure_."

An alleyway came up on their left and Nigel pulled Adam into it, pushing him up against the brick wall. He adored and despised the thought of Adam whoring in frocks or fuck all.

"What happened to the rules?" Adam teased and Nigel leaned in.

He didn't kiss him, but breathed over the crest of Adam's ear, "When the gambling's through, we could always see to that." It had been such a thrill to have Adam up against the wall at home, mewling and crying out his name in pleasure. To do so in public? Even at such a late out it was a risk, but that added to the pleasant chill that went down Nigel's back. "It could be something to look forward to if you find yourself bored of the cards."

Adam grinned. "Later. First, show me how you gamble. Then we can see about you spreading me out over a table at home."

He turned his head just enough to draw the tip of his nose over Nigel's stubble cheek before slipping out from between him and the wall. He liked it, the teasing, the playing around. He could keep his hands to himself all night, and he would, to guarantee that had no trouble getting home. He would be aching the entire time. He hoped Nigel would be, too.

Nigel smirked as he followed Adam out of the alleyway. Oh, he'd have Adam spread out alright. Even if they didn't quite make it home first.

Stepping into pace side by side, Nigel directed them to a tavern lit up like a circus. There were groups of men outside of varying degrees of intoxicated, several simply chatting while they smoked. One of them noticed Nigel and smiled.

"Someone is looking fancier than the last time he got thrown out of here."

Nigel returned the grin as he clapped the man on the shoulder, "Made a good investment. My pockets might actually be fatter than your gut."

"That'll do well to get you back inside. Perhaps stay away from the women of top-hatted dandies, though."

The pair of them laughed. Nigel didn't know the names of any of these people, but they didn't know his either. It was an unspoken rule of sorts.

They chatted for a moment more before Nigel said, "If you'll excuse me, I've brought a virgin for the black and red bitch to have her way with." And since joke among regulars. The well-lit but nameless building was know as _Harlequinul_ \- The Harlequin - because of the cards fluttering about inside along with the roulette table freshly put in. 

The men took notice of Adam at that point and looked him over suspiciously.

"He looked about twelve," one of them mused.

"Thirteen," Nigel replied, easily. 

Nigel noticed - only because he had watched Adam so closely for so long, now, that he had entirely changed his posture and carriage. Gone was the princeling, the sly creature who played with gender as though it was a toy. Here stood a young man preparing to test his mantle. There was an ease about Adam that seemed somehow more _human._ Perhaps because he wasn't poised to move, but ready to stay still. Perhaps because he'd cast some kind of glamour over them all. Nigel wasn't sure.

"And I'm a quick learner," he added.

The had lost interest. "Keep your eye on him," one replied. "It's a rowdy bunch in there tonight."

"Believe me," Nigel replied with a smirk, "the kid can take care of himself."

Then he pushed the door open and the familiar noises of a madhouse greeted him. Whooping and hollering of all kinds, toasts and taunts, laughter of men with their bought company. Nigel breathed it all in, entirely content and in his element.

Adam's eyes scanned every inch of the place, from the filthy floor to the smoke-stained walls to the people pressing together, flowing past each other like water. The entire place reeked of life. He followed Nigel as he made his way to the bar and got himself a drink. He watched Nigel relax into the environment, back among his kind - human, alive, _breathing_ \- back among company that was short-lived and easily forgotten.

Adam could see how this was Nigel's arena, his circus to control. He wondered what would have happened had they met here, in another time, instead of how things actually unravelled.

Drink in hand, Nigel sipped it while toasting with the various people who recognized him. He caught Adam watching and fought to keep his grin under control.

"First thoughts?" he asked over the volume of the crowd.

"The night's not long enough," Adam replied, honestly. He could imagine himself here, often, learning the patterns of these people, understanding the written rules of the games and the unspoken rules of this society. He could imagine himself here with Nigel. "I want to watch before I play. I want to watch you."

Nigel winked at him before throwing the rest of his drink back, leaving the glass on the bartop before making his way deeper into the establishment towards the velvety tables to play a hand or more of _douăzeci și unu._ A chair opened as he approached the table and he slid into it while the other players collected coins from the sad sack who left the table with empty pockets. Empty glasses littered the edge of the table and Nigel smirked. Perfect. Nigel had grown used to being up all night, and if everyone here was always balls deep into a fresh keg, he was in even better luck than normal.

Adam, for his part, continued to nurse his drink. They had come together, but they needn't stick together. Nigel had made clear the dangers of closeness here and Adam wouldn't be reckless with their time. They had plenty of it yet. Instead, he prowled the edges of the tables, content to look on and learn rather than play. He watched Nigel out of the corner of his eye, finding more and more pleasure in the way the man presented himself here. Clever, quick, absolutely beautiful.

Three winning hands drawn out over time, and Nigel was ready for more drinks. He promised he’d send over a round of drinks for the table as he returned to the bar. While he didn’t see Adam, he felt his eyes on him every now and again. He mingled with people he hadn’t seen in a long time, laughing and drinking, over gossip. Nigel was sad to learn another favourite den of his had been shut down by the constabulary for some ill intention or another, but there were still plenty still standing that he could show Adam in future. 

His pockets were more weighty than they had been, but the fun had yet to truly begin. He still had his literal aces up his sleeve. Although maybe he would save them for another time. 

He found Adam watching the roulette table and stood across from him.

A lot of Adam's life had been left to chance but she was a difficult mistress for him to approach but he so enjoyed the times he could watch others face her.  He looked up, pleased, and quirked an eyebrow at Nigel. "Have the cards bored you?"

“Didn’t feel like taking everyone’s fortunes all in one go,” he replied over the top of his drink. 

Nigel’s eyes moved back to the roulette table, taking in where people had placed their bets. He set a gold coin down on the table. “Thirteen, red,” he said with a subtle wink in Adam’s direction.

Adam snorted but didn't outwardly comment.  _ Too long with the Damned, _ he wanted to say,  _ too long among us walking corpses _ . The roulette spun and Adam's eyes followed the ball that rocketed in the opposite direction around the upper lip. There was anticipation he couldn't explain that curled within him, excitement and nervousness for something so fragile and small, over something so insignificant as a coin.

It landed red. It wasn't thirteen.

Adam clicked his tongue, eyes up to Nigel again. "Tough luck," he watched as some gathered their winnings, having guessed the colour if not the number it landed on. Others leaving the table entirely, off to seek the mercy of the cards once more. "You know, there is a Russian saying that if you've no luck with gambling, you've luck with love. You could always take your gold elsewhere." He grinned.

“Not my gold either way,” Nigel grinned back and raised an eyebrow, silently asking if Adam was bored already.

Adam shook his head, just slightly, and tilted his chin towards the card tables again.  "I'd like to try my luck," he said, smiling wider when Nigel gestured for him to go ahead. "Against you."

“If you insist,” Nigel said, following behind him. He was glad he’d hung onto those aces after all.

While Nigel was only just beginning to feel the warm glow of his whiskey, the rest of the table was suitably drunk. Even the dealer seemed to have been coerced into a shot or two. Even better. 

The cards came out and Nigel smiled. Not yet looking at his hand.

Adam didn't bet high. He didn't go in confident. He went in quiet. And quietly he lost one hand, another, a third, all the while watching Nigel delight in it. And then...

"Twenty-one to the kid." 

Adam graciously accepted his winnings. The next hand he raised the bet, watched Nigel do the same. A second ten landed in his hand and Adam split them, elegant fingers resting on the dirty cards just long enough to linger.

Another bet. Another card and -

"Twenty-one. Again, to the little fucker."

Nigel lifted his glass. He had to say he was impressed. Adam must be an even better counter than he was. Although he was definitely too honest to be a complete cheat. 

“What say we make it all in?” Nigel asked. Many at the table groaned, not wanting to lose more, but there were always those especially desperate few itching for the high of a big win as well as earning their wages back. 

Adam only grinned more and pushed his coins into the center of the table. The desperate ones did the same and one by one they got their cards. The dealer looked to Nigel who held his cards carefully, one on top of the other. 

“Hit me,” he said, and the dealer slid him a card across the fabric coated table. With practiced ease, Nigel peaked at the card and added it to his little stack. He picked them up then and let the middle card slide down his sleeve, having already been replaced by an ace. He spread the cards out before him then smirked, “And I believe that makes twenty-one.”

The table collectively groaned, the dealer raising his voice a little at those desperate enough to start a fight over it as Nigel leaned to gather his coins. Adam watched him with narrowed eyes, delighted, and then tapped his seemingly last coin to the table before standing.

"I'll try my luck in love, I suppose," he said. He slid the coin to the dealer and winked at Nigel as he made his way out

Nigel took his time, making sure his coin pouch was secure so as not to be pilfered or stolen entirely. He got another drink, purchasing rounds for a few friendly faces still conscious enough for more, and then made his way outside tipsy at most and very pleased with himself. 

Had he not been so caught up in having his filthy way with Adam in celebration of their successful night out, Nigel may have noticed a few things. He may have noticed he had left behind his ace. He may have noticed he knocked over his own glass while clapping a friend on the back. But most importantly, he may have noticed a far more familiar face glaring at him from the end of the bar...


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation and author notes at the end.

Once he got outside, Nigel spotted Adam a little ways away from the door and he beamed as he caught his eye.  “Did you enjoy losing all of your money?” he asked teasingly.

"I'm certainly enjoying watching it saunter drunkenly towards me," Adam replied. He leaned against a wall until Nigel was near before pushing off to walk beside him.  Adam wanted nothing more than to coax Nigel into an alley, as they had on the way here, and do naughty things with him. He wanted the thrill of that danger, but not at the cost of either of their lives.  "Did you enjoy preening?"

“I’m not drunk,” Nigel grinned lazily. And he wasn’t exactly, but it was the most intoxicated he’d been since that night Adam’s coven had tried to kill him. “But yes, I did enjoy it. Still am.”  He caught up to Adam and they practically danced around each other, daring the other to touch first. Nigel nearly wished he hadn’t come up with ground rules. But then he remembered that his favourite pass-time was often breaking rules.

He took a glance around them, seeing no one around, and took Adam by the wrist and pulled him into a dark alley off to the side, his arm snaking around the vampire's waist as he pulled him in for a kiss. His eyes were closed and he thought he heard his name, but chalked it up to what he wanted to hear out of Adam.

Adam grinned against him, resting his hands against Nigel's chest as he hummed against his lips. He wished he could taste the whiskey on him, longing to know what Nigel truly tasted like. When they broke apart, the two grinned at each other like bandits after a successful job. In a way, that's exactly what they were, having played cards like ringers.

“Nigel!” A deep voice boomed out around them, and Nigel’s heart stuttered as his eyes went wide. 

That voice... He turned his head but the shout must have come from the next street over. They had time.  “We need to get out of here,” Nigel said quietly.

Adam glanced around them as well, but even he didn't see anyone. "Someone mad about losing their coin?"

"It's not that."

"We should hardly be concerned if it's someone wanting to mug us for ours," Adam laughed, the teasing soft on his lips, but when Nigel's expression didn't soften, when he didn't smile back, Adam straightened his shoulders properly, turned behind them again.

"Where?" he asked.

Adam's willingness to fight just caused more panic to tighten Nigel’s chest. His name rang out around them again and without care, he took hold of Adam’s hand and started to run. He didn’t lead them down the path they had come, instead twisting through more back alleys that doubled back and tripled the length of their way home.  Nigel refused to say anything, to answer Adam’s single word question that was only repeated once. He couldn’t bring himself to until they were safely on the estate, even more safely tucked away in Adam’s third-floor rooms.

" _What_ ," Adam asked him, shucking his - Nigel's - jacket, "in unholy hell was that?"

Nigel paced back and forth, running a hand through his hair as his anxiety raced through him.  “Darko,” he managed to say. His throat felt so tight. “Darko saw me. Saw us. He could have... Fuck he would have...”

"A lot of people saw you," Adam said, brow raised. "Saw _us_. That was the point of going out to enjoy the nightlife. Do you owe him money?"

Nigel almost laughed. Almost.  He stopped his pacing and looked hard at Adam. “Such a vast memory," he said through gritted teeth, "and yet you don’t remember the other person screaming at you when you took me away."

Adam's eyes narrowed and he looked just past Nigel as he tried to remember. He'd forgotten how many exactly there had been, he had only been interested in taking Nigel at the time.  He swallowed faintly and looked at Nigel again. For a long while, he just looked at him, and then he looked away, hands clasping behind his head as he hummed a quiet pensive note.

"Fuck," he said. He didn't ask Nigel why he hadn't gone to his friend. He was too scared and hopeful for the answer.

Nigel began his pacing again. If Darko has caught up with them he’d have tried to kill Adam. He may have been an idiot, but he was good with faces. Darko would remember. And that would have gone one of two ways. Both ways involved watching the death of someone Nigel cared about.

With a somewhat dramatic sigh, Nigel let himself slump into one of the cushy chairs, face in his hands. What in the fuck was he going to do now? Darko would keep looking for him. He'd bring _Gabi_ into it. _Fuck_.

Adam considered him but didn't disturb him. What could he tell him? Go back to your friend, who thinks you two-years dead? Adam selfishly didn't want that. He didn't want Nigel to go anywhere Adam couldn't follow him. And back to friends who hunted vampires for a hobby was hardly a place he could follow.

He wasn't stupid.

But perhaps he was monstrous.

He was the one keeping Nigel here, away from his own, just so he could be near Adam.

Nigel didn’t look at Adam when he lifted his head, instead looking to the curtains with resigned exhaustion. “The sun will be up soon.”

Adam made a sound in his throat in agreement. The sun would come up and then what? Would Nigel go? Would he leave? Would he be able to face the separation?

"Will you join me?" he asked instead.

Nigel hesitated, perhaps a moment too long, but still, he rose. “Of course,” he said, but with none of the usual vigour. He actually passed Adam on his way into the bedroom. No teasing. No kiss on the cheek.

Adam pressed his fingers against his eyes and wished that Nigel hadn't said anything at all. He didn't want him reluctant in bed, he wanted Nigel there if Nigel wanted to be there. But he couldn't tell him that, he couldn't push Nigel to make decisions... this was part of his non-life Adam hated the most; the power he wielded even when he didn't want to. He felt that anything he said would come across as anger, command, demand, rather than an offer of a choice.

With a deliberate huff of breath, he moved to follow Nigel into the bedroom.

The only usual thing about Nigel right then was his serious expression and the fact he let his clothes just drop in a heap on the floor. His jacket first, landing heavy on the ground as the coin pouch in his pocket clinked. He unbuttoned his shirt slowly, clearly more out of distraction than anything else.

"Why did you run?" Adam asked him. He stood by the door, hands in his pockets, shoulders down in exhaustion. "When you heard him call, why did you run away from him?"

Nigel’s hands froze and his brow twitched into a deeper furrow. Why _did_ he run? Because he didn’t want Darko to kill Adam? Because he didn’t want Adam to kill Darko? Because... 

“What answer are you looking for Adam?” he asked in response, finally looking at him. “The truth? Or the one you want to hear?”

"I want you to be honest with me," Adam said. "Did you think I would hurt him?"

“Yes,” Nigel said. “But that’s not the whole truth.”

He looked away again and could feel Adam’s tension filling the room. Tugging at his own muscles and making it hard to hold still. 

“Well?” Adam said, his tone getting frustrated but not angry. 

“Because I don’t think I could have gone with him even if he bested you.”

Adam swallowed, nodded just once, and crossed his arms across his front. It was a front. Did Nigel know the truth?

"I won't keep you," Adam started, eyes up when Nigel snorted. "You can go, Nigel. What am I to do when the sun comes up? I can't stop you. I don't want you to go, but I won't stop you."

_ But I'd fight to get you back. I'd fight to prove to you to stay. I'd fight for what I'm feeling grow between us. Just ask me, ask me and I'll do it. _

Nigel shook his head and went back over to Adam, taking him gently into his arms. He left enough space between them for Adam to come closer if he wanted. That sense of unease from his dreams was back, and he shook it off.

“I’m not leaving, you idiot thing,” he said and there was a hint of affection in there. “That’s what I’m saying. Even if Darko was right in front of us, I don’t know that I would have faced him. I think I still would have run.”  _I still don’t know what you’ve done to me_ , he added in thought. _And I'm concerned that I don’t think I have an issue with whatever it is_.

Had it been Gabi to have seen them... Maybe that would have been different. But it had been an easy decision tonight. Even if it had left him shaken.

Adam did step nearer then, he leaned his head against Nigel's shoulder, he sighed, he slid his arms around him and held him near. There was a comfort in his answer, in the honesty of it. He felt the warmth of Nigel's tone, felt safe knowing that he would wake and Nigel would still be here.

"Let's hope you never have to make that choice, with him in front of you," Adam said, sincerely meaning it.

Nigel hoped so too. But he refrained from saying as much as he held Adam, glaring at the wall opposite him. They'd be having such a good night...

"I need another drink," Nigel said quietly and pressed his lips to Adam's temple. "I promise I'll be next to you when you wake up."

Adam didn't want to let him go, but he did and watched as Nigel left the bedroom, closing the door behind him.

Nigel sat in the third-floor parlour for a while with his glass of whiskey, but he felt confined for the first time in a long time. The sun hadn't quite come up yet but it was nearing, and with his body pulsing with anxious energy, Nigel gave up trying to drink himself calm and took the rest of the bottle outside to drink as he watched the sun rose.  He didn't make it halfway down the stairs before he collided with Bogdan.

"Watch it," he said mockingly, but then noticed the worry on the valet's face. "What?" Nigel's brain instantly went to Darko. This wasn't good.

"I need to get Adam," he replied.

Nigel shook his head. "He's already in bed. What?"

Bogdan growled but relented. Clearly this couldn't wait. "It's Miss de la Courtier. She's in trouble."

The vampire headed back down the stairs and Nigel followed quickly. If Bénédicte was hurt, then something truly serious was going on.  He considered that if Bogdan was awake, and if she was, then Adam hadn't perhaps yet become lost to the world. But...

Bogdan was explaining things as they descended the stairs, words almost too quick to catch. Something about punishment, something about the breaking of a cardinal rule, something about blood lust and blood loss and -

"Jesus," Nigel had seen Adam in a bad way, but he had watched it happen, he had been there to witness. Here... he just had the aftermath.

The girl slumped on her knees in the doorway looked as if she had been mauled by a wild animal. Her hair was far deeper in colour, drenched in blood that Nigel was fairly sure was her own. Her dress was in tatters and blackened by gore, her eyes feral and her heavy breathing shallow despite her lack of need for air. When Bénédicte saw Nigel stating there, mouth agape as he took in her appearance, she attempted to stand, but could barely hold herself up, let along make it to her feet. 

Nigel shook off Bogdan's warning not to get near her and knelt in front, holding her eye contact as he brought a gentle hand to her bruised cheek. He could see her need in her blazing eyes and said as fiercely as he could manage, "You will wait until I bring you upstairs."

Bénédicte nodded and Nigel carefully picked her up, holding her close to his chest as he made back for the stairs. 

"Nigel, I-" Bogdan called after him. 

"Shut up," Nigel said. "Get her something else to wear. I'll deal with this."

"She could _kill_ you," Bogdan told him, voice stern. It was a warning, a reminder, but he held his hands up in a show of surrender when Nigel wheeled about to glare at him. "If you can, wake Adam. She won't need much from him, but it will help," was the last thing he said before leaving Nigel to take the vampire upstairs. 

In Nigel arms, Béné was absolutely tiny and felt like she had no weight at all. She trembled, and it knew it was less from shock and fear and more from the strength it was taking not to devour the mortal holding her right then and there.  He knew it was a risk. He knew what he was getting into picking up the girl himself. And yet it still caught him off guard when fangs sunk into the base of his neck as the door swung closed behind him. It felt different from when Adam drank. The need was different and Nigel felt it flow through him as he fell back against the door, slowly sliding to the ground as Béné fed. And yet he held her tight. 

"Adam," he called weakly. He knew Béné couldn't wait, that she was feeding because she couldn't wait. But he was more calling for his own sake rather than hers.

He wasn't sure Adam heard him, he wasn't sure he could even hear himself at that point. He was falling to weakness much faster than he did with Adam, much further than he had in a long time. Not since the vampires attacked him unprovoked in the lobby.

And then the teeth were gone and there was a rush of noise and shifting. He heard Béné hissing something in French, voice brutal and unhappy, he heard a reply just as cruel right back even if he couldn't make out the words.

He felt familiar hands against his cheek, against his pulse, a soft curse, and a kiss against his forehead before Adam pulled away and took Béné with him, leaving Nigel by the door for the moment.

"Drink," he told her, shoving his own wrist up for her to take. "You will tell me when you wake up, but you've fed enough from him."

"He offered."

"He will get a fucking earful from me, too. Drink."

Béné growled at Adam but did as she was told, clinging to his wrist like an addict looking for a fix. Blood dripped from her chin when she finally did let go, her eyes glowing with bloodlust and her fangs still bared. Her wounds slowly began to react and close up, but she was still weak. 

" _Dors_ ," she said, voice quiet as she swayed on her feet. 

Nigel's vision was fading but as Béné began to tip, Nigel felt the urge to reach for the girl. It was a strange instinct to have, but it was one that was not fulfilled as he faded entirely, the last thing he saw being Adam catch her instead.

When Nigel woke again, he was cleaned up and half-dressed - his shirt was gone, as were his boots, but his pants remained on. He lay on his usual side of the four-poster, with the blankets folded around him. It was too early still, he could feel it. Though the room was pitch dark, he knew that beyond the sun was still high. In a mild panic, he made to get out of bed, to check that Adam and Béné had not remained in the living room, the daylight catching them.

He was still too dizzy, and sat back before he could get too far. But he felt the weight of a body against his arm as he moved again, and turned to look.

Adam lay curled around Béné like a protective sibling, his brows drawn in concern or anger or both, as he clung to the little thing who was curled, fetal, against his stomach. Neither breathed. Neither moved. Both dead to the world entirely. Béné still looked damaged - there was no other word for it - and her skin wasn't as pale and lovely as it usually was, marks still spread across it, lightening as they healed even in front of Nigel's eyes.

Nigel's mouth twitched up in a soft smile and he reached over to push back Adam's hair, to smooth Béné's wild and stiff mane of blood-soaked hair. While the staining was still nasty looking, it appeared like someone - Bogdan if not Adam himself - had managed to wash the worst of the blood out of the girl's hair. He watched the two of them for a long while, letting the pain in his neck keep him awake before he drifted off again, a light doze as his hand touched against the back of Adam's as it clung to the girl between them.

When he awoke once more, it was with a wince as something poked at the bruise at his throat. It took him a moment to open his eyes, and when he did he was startled to see Béné cuddled against him, half lying on his chest as she ran a finger over his throat. 

"Relax," she whispered, pushing Nigel's chest to keep him from sitting up. "I think I'm starting to see why Adam likes you so much."

"Oh?" Nigel replied weakly, voice strained.

"Whiskey tastes sweet on you," Béné answered with a mischievous smirk that caused Nigel to blush.

"And that's enough of that," Adam muttered behind her, voice pitched in annoyance. He didn't get up, he remained curled as he had been throughout his slumber. While his eyes were closed he was clearly awake. And tense.

Nigel glanced at him but Adam didn't open his eyes, just pursed his lips. His arms were crossed over his front now, with Béné no longer in them.

"Oh, stop it," Béné scolded.

"I'm sorry, stop what?" Adam answered, opening one eye to glare at Béné. "Stop being concerned for the fact that someone your age managed to get herself into such a mess? Stop being annoyed that you fed on someone in my possession without permission? Stop being annoyed that you fed too much -"

Nigel reached over, but he couldn't quite reach Adam's cheek so he gently poked his nose. "I'm fine, Adam," he said, letting his other arm wrap around Béné. He was fine, but he was sore and still tired. 

"See," Béné smirked. "He says he's fine."

"Shut up," Adam told her, petulant and unhappy. "Get off him. Let him rest after what you've done."

He muttered something else, but it was pressed into the pillow beneath him rather than directed at Bénédicte. For a moment more he remained coiled in his displeasure before he pushed himself up and out of bed, ignoring Nigel as he called for him. He left the room with a flourish.

Béné watched the door a moment before turning back to Nigel. "He's possessive," she said, eyes rolling to the ceiling. "Stupid boy thinks I'm going to take you from him."

Nigel breathed a laugh. "Sorry, darling, but you're not exactly what I'm looking for in a woman."

"Thank the gods for that," Béné said as she pushed off of him. Even not looking her best, she still looked like the most expensive doll Nigel had ever seen in his life. 

He pushed himself up, wincing a little as he did so. "How angry do you think he really is?" he asked. It was hard for him to tell if he was mad because of the night previous or because of Béné. 

The girl shrugged. "He's quite upset it would seem."

"Shit."

"Oh, it's only in part because I fed on you," she added casually. "I think it's more to do with the fact that I had to in the first place."

Nigel hoped so. He rubbed against his neck, the bruising there fresh and sore. He noted that the bite wasn't over the top of Adam's, it was higher, closer to his jaw.

"What happened?" he asked her, deciding it was probably best if Adam had his space for the time being. "What did that to you?"

Béné collapsed against the pillows, wiggling herself back beneath the covers with a sigh. She wasn't sure what Adam had told Nigel from when they came home so late. She didn't want to risk further angering him. 

"I... did something I shouldn't have. I was angry. Sven's found out about it."

Nigel looked the girl over, puzzled. "Did they deserve it?"

"Wouldn't you rather know who it was?"

Nigel shrugged. "That doesn't seem to be my business. If they deserved it what should I care. You are vicious, but not without your causes. I've come to know you well enough to know that much."

Béné breathed a laugh. "She did. But it broke truce rules and Sven may pay the price for that. He saw to it that I paid a price first."

"Yes," Adam's voice drawled from the doorway, he stood there just as annoyed as when he'd left, but he looked more regal about it now. He rested his shoulder against the doorframe. "And because of his and my little _agreement_ I can't go over there and set his house on fire."

"You wouldn't."

"I wouldn't?" Adam asked, eyes narrowing. "Really?"

Béné laughed, shaking her head. She knew he would. It warmed her that he would, without a second thought, if she asked him to.

"It's done. It's over. Thanks to your lovely pet here, I'm back to being lovely."

"You pledged to him," Adam hissed, shaking his head, disgusted. "He pledged to protect you."

Nigel tensed, concerned for both of the vampires in his mists. "Adam," he said, getting out of bed and slowly approaching him. "No one is dead. She's fine, I'm fine. Can she not just stay here and wait for things to blow over?"

"If only it was that easy," Béné mumbled to herself, crossing her arms over her chest. "Not that I'd want to stay with that sad sulk in the doorway."

"You're not helping," Nigel said, pointing a finger at the girl before turning back to Adam. "Darling, why are you angry about this?"

Adam wished he could revel in the pet name rather than considered the question, the vampire on his bed - on _their_ bed - and pushed out a defeated breath before rubbing his eyes.  "She can claim sanctuary and won't be touched here, that is hardly the problem. The problem is if she is summoned, and if she has not been dismissed -" he looked over to Béné who shook her head, confirming his suspicions, "she has no right to refuse the summons. And _that_ is why I'm angry."

He sucked his bottom lip between his teeth and relented, allowing a smile as he added. " _And_ because I hate the idea of someone _else_ feeding on you. It tears at me."

"He's jealous." Béné helpfully added. Adam laughed, shrugged.

"I am jealous," he admitted quietly.

"Adam," Nigel said, approaching and cupping his face, "she needed help. That's it." He let out a laugh, trying to brighten the mood. "I'm not whoring out my blood to anyone who wants it."

In this moment, Nigel really hated vampire politics.

Adam snorted, before leaning into the hand holding him and reaching out to bring Nigel nearer to kiss. When Béné made a sound of distaste behind him Adam calmly flipped her the bird, continuing to kiss Nigel until he was well and properly contented to stop.

He nosed against him, a little thing, an apology, and stepped back. 

"Do you need more?" he asked Béné, "Not from him. We have others. How do you feel?"

Even when he looked at Béné, Nigel kept close to Adam, nuzzling against his cheek. He could tell he was still upset. 

Béné made a small noise and sunk down further against the pillows. She probably did need more. She had taken quite the punishment and even with all she had taken, she still didn't feel her full strength. But that would require getting up and fetching more. A task she certainly didn't feel like completing.

Nigel looked between the vampires before saying quietly, "You saw how bad she was. It was damn worse than when that bastard went after _you_."

Adam ignored him, though not unkindly. He set a hand against his chest and curled his fingers there, but kept his eyes on Béné.  "I've only got boys," he continued apologetically, wincing a little in sympathy when Béné frowned. "Do you want me to find you a girl?"

Nigel didn't like the sound of that. Not at all. 

"Preferably," Béné replied. "I doubt any of your boys would fit my tastes. Even if they did, that would be a different sort of problem."

"You can't bring her a child," Nigel protested.

Béné rolled her eyes, "I don't want a _child_ , Nigel. That's the point I'm making. I have no interest in killing any of Adam's pretty things he keeps locked away in the dark."

"Woman," Adam rephrased, shrugging. "It's... hard to explain. Blood tastes different from different people. To some it's gender, sometimes it's their diet. Consider it seasoning for a meal, with human meal equivalence. She needn't kill the person, she just needs to revive herself."

"Something tells me she is not the kind of girl to let her meals just up and leave," Nigel said quietly.

" _She_ can hear you," Béné pouted.

Adam groaned softly, drawing a hand over his face before turning to Nigel. He wasn't frustrated, he just had never had to explain his or others' need for blood to those that blood usually came from.

"There's a way to feed that... it puts you into a trance. Both of you. It's painless, in fact, it's the opposite. You've felt it." Adam raised an eyebrow, smiling when Nigel's cheeks warmed at the memory. "It's deliberate, it masks the horror of what's going on for those being fed on. Benny needs enough to bring herself to strength, she won't drain her. By the time she's finished the lady will be in a lovely dreamless sleep and can be returned to whence she came from."  Adam shrugged helplessly. "No harm _really_ done. She might not even remember it happened."

Nigel still didn't like it, but short of Adam changing his mind and letting the girl drink from either of them again, there weren't really any other options.

"Fine," he said, running a hand through his hair. "Am I doing the honours then?"

Adam gave him a look, "Why would you?"

"Something tells me the kind of woman Béné is looking for would be easier wooed by someone more rugged."

Adam looked between Nigel and Béné for a moment, before breathing out a gentle laugh and rubbing the back of his neck.

"The kind of woman Benny likes, likes, uh... women..." he said quietly.

Nigel looked back and forth between the two of them again. Béné stifled a giggle behind a hand, admiring the slow flush on Nigel's face. The giggle turned into full on laughter when Nigel then said, "You're not going out in a frock."

"Are you, then, in my stead?" Adam asked, grinning when Béné laughed harder. "No, neither of us will go, I'll send Bogdan."

"In a dress?"

"No need, he's the most harmless thing imaginable when it comes to women, they don't see him as a suitor."

"Thank Christ you're nocturnal," Nigel grumbled. "I need a damn drink to deal with both of you."

"I wouldn't recommend that," Béné said. "What with the recent blood loss, spirits may only knock you on your ass."

"All the better then," Nigel shot back.

"Coffee," Adam said, kissing Nigel chastely on the lips. "Coffee you may - and _should_ \- have. And breakfast. I'm sure he'll be thrilled to make it before seeking out more specialized cuisine."

He waved vaguely at Béné to stay where she was and left the room again, this time hardly as tense as the time before, to get yell for Bogdan to bring up something.

Nigel stalked away and slumped at the table as he awaited his breakfast. This was going to be a long fucking day and he wasn't necessarily looking forward to it. His neck hurt, his head hurt. It was bad enough that his pleasant night had gone so far to hell. With a groan, he put his head down on the table.

When Bogdan arrived, Adam let him in, watched him set the table quickly, pour Nigel his first cup of coffee, say something quietly enough that Adam didn't hear but that made Nigel lift his head with a laugh.

When he passed Adam on his way out, Adam caught his elbow, ducking his head to make his request for Béné. Bogdan groaned quietly, turning his head against Adam's for a moment before agreeing and moving to do as asked.

Adam watched him take the stairs, open the door, and then turned to Nigel again.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

_ Sore. Tired. Sick of vampires,  _ he thought before saying,  “Again, Adam, I’m fine.” Nigel offered a poor attempt at a smile. “Come here.”

Adam padded across the floor towards him and Nigel pulled him into his lap, kissing up his neck before coming to his lips. Nigel kissed him sweetly, gently, affectionately. 

“So much for our lovely night of fucking debauchery,” he said quietly.

"There will be other nights," Adam told him, nuzzling close. But how he wished... how he wished that they hadn't been called by Nigel's friend, how he wished that they had fallen through the door drunk on each other, barely managed to make it to the door, didn't even make it to the bed...

He kissed Nigel again, set his hands on either side of his face to hold him close. Perhaps, when Béné was busy, perhaps when they had an hour to themselves...

“Adam,” Nigel whispered but there was concern in his voice, in his eyes, as his thumb brushed underneath Adam’s eye. “Adam what’s wrong? You’re... Is this blood?”  Nigel wiped at the blood pooling in Adam’s tear ducts. 

Adam said nothing, looking away to hide the emotions he was feeling.

Nigel put the pieces together that this was how a vampire _cried_. Shifting slightly he said, “Adam, we’ll all be fine. Let Béné stay here. We can protect her should a summons come.”

"She can stay, of course," Adam replied, smiling. He cleared up the rest of the blood against his cheeks and leaned to kiss Nigel again. "Hell, she could live here if she found it palatable, I just highly doubt it. She hasn't ever wanted to share a coven. We'd murder each other if we did. But she knows she's welcome."

Nigel held Adam close and spoke to him gently, “We’ll be okay, Adam. We all will.”

He was still nuzzled against Adam when Béné called through the open door, “Did you send your valet out?”

Nigel couldn’t help but smirk when he saw her little face peaking through the crack in the door. She was clearly using it to hold herself up, he could tell that from where he sat.  “Someone’s impatient,” he called back over the top of Adam’s head. 

The girl glared. “Well unless you’d like to offer again, I’m stuck being hungry aren’t I.”

Adam held up his middle finger again, behind himself, before dropping his hand with a sigh.  "He won't be long. You want quality, don't you?"

Béné glared, but didn't comment further. In this situation, she owed Adam for the sanctuary in the first place. Sure, she knew he would give it, but the fact that he was willing to help her with his own blood, help her by sending someone to get her a meal, help her by damn near letting her drain his human...

With a sigh she pushed back into the bedroom.

“Cut her some slack, darling,” Nigel said. “It’s not fair to either of you to fight like cats and dogs right now.” He kissed Adam’s temple at the sound of the vampire sighing. “Tell me what you want me to do to you later.”

The sigh became a hum and Adam turned his head into the kiss. He was right, after all, what good was it to be mad about something that had already happened and couldn't be undone?

"Well," he murmured, "in lieu of our interrupted evening, where I would have had you drape me against any surface you found to fuck me senseless, I think..." Adam leaned back a little, stretching his shoulders, hands against Nigel's sides. "That I want you between my legs. Hands holding my thighs open, holding me still as I squirm against you... I promised to show you that new dress, for your trouble. I think I'll have that on when you swallow me down."

Nigel let out a low growl as he smirked, hands running over Adam’s back. “I think I’ll mark up those delicious thighs of yours first. Seeing as how I haven’t been able to make any for a while. I think you need some reminding.”

He went to kiss Adam again, but stopped when the main door opened and Bogdan walked in.

“That was quick,” Nigel half groaned in annoyance.

Bogdan gave him a look but addressed Adam when he spoke.

"Would Miss Bénédicte like her own room or to recover here?"

"I quite like it here," Béné remarked from beyond the bedroom door as Adam shook his head.

"Her own room, please. It's already quite the infringement to have had a woman in my bed at all, but two..."

Nigel couldn’t help but snort. “I wouldn’t have thought you had any complaints give how the two of you were curled up together when you fell asleep,” he said. 

“Shut up, Nigel,” they both said only make Nigel laugh more. 

“We’ve got two bedrooms,” Nigel went on. “The girl is still weak, just put her in my room instead of sending her all the way downstairs.”

"She's got you around her finger already," Adam tutted, before kissing Nigel atop the forehead and reluctantly getting up from his lap. He gestured to Bogdan to bring the young woman in as he himself went to the bedroom to help Bénédicte from his bedroom to the other.

"Do you need anything else?" Adam asked her when he moved to pick her up, voice gentle where before he was tense. "Anyone else?"

Bénédicte shook her head and she wrapped her arms around Adam’s neck, allowing him to pick her up like a child. “The one should be enough. _Should_ being the keyword of the phrase. How angry with me would Nigel be if I killed whatever pretty thing you’ve had sent for me?”

"I wouldn't push that theory into practice, _cherie_ ," Adam told her, not unkindly. Hell, if she killed the girl she killed her, it was an unfortunate but inevitable part of their existence.

The girl hummed as she rested her head on Adam’s shoulder. “I’m merely curious,” she said. “Where are you taking me?”

" _His_ room, ironically," Adam told her, carrying her through the main room and into the side room that had for several months been Nigel's alone. Adam had allowed him that privacy, never interrupted him here, never walked in on him. He had the door to close as he wished, had enough space to move about in if he didn't want to share it with Adam.

Now, just the bed, a few clothes still folded on a chest at the foot of it, some books that Nigel had brought in from Adam's library.

A clean space, though sparse.

Béné smiled as she was placed gently down on the bed. “You must be thrilled with this,” she said. “First in your bed and now in his.”

She had been in this room before, having raided Nigel’s hideous wardrobe for clothes when she first needed to stay here. But then Bénédicte had had more important things to do than look around.

Adam ruffled her curls and snorted, turning to leave the room again when he was sure she was comfortably settled. Beyond, Bogdan stood by the door, eyes directed deliberately away from Nigel, and Nigel sat at the table just as deliberately avoiding Bogdan. Neither looked like they'd fought, more like neither wanted to be in the same room right then.

Adam couldn't help but laugh, just a little.

"Bring her through, Bogdan, thank you."

Nigel watched from his chair as Bogdan stepped into the hall briefly before bringing a rather dazed-looking woman through. She was beautiful, but it was overdone. Nigel wasn’t sure if the woman was a prostitute or not, perhaps some kind of actress with that amount of makeup. Whoever she was, he still felt entirely uncomfortable with the situation. At least he didn’t really need to go back into his room ever again unless absolutely necessary.

" Well?” Nigel said to Adam.

"Well," Adam agreed, watching as Bogdan closed the door behind the young woman when she stepped into the bedroom. He left without a further look at either of them, and closed the third floor off behind himself. Adam cleared his throat and returned to Nigel's side, running a hand through his hair. He knew this wasn't the time to continue their previous conversation, but lord he wanted to.

Nigel cleared his throat, “Well if Béné is... _occupied_... what should we get up to? Do we need to stay out here and wait?”  As much as Nigel _did_ want to stay out here and make sure Béné didn’t kill the poor woman, at the same time he also wanted to be far away from here. Or at the very least making enough noise to not even _possibly_ overhear anything.

"No," came the drawn reply, a pleased purr behind it as Adam curled his fingers in Nigel's hair a little before letting it go. He gave Nigel a narrow-eyed look and took a step back, then another. 

"Count to fifty, then follow me," he said, turning to move to their bedroom, leaving the door deliberately open so Nigel could see him shuffling around through the new clothes that hadn't yet made it to the closet. Intention clear, their conversation before its interruption still warm between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation note:  
>  ** _Dors_** :: Sleep
> 
> Author note:  
> I know how unfinished this feels, but that's because it is. Chapter 16 is the last full chapter as Chapter 17 was never finished. It was deemed "unimportant", so Nigel was left in the lurch and will probably stay that way since, no matter how hard I try, I just can't write Adam in any capacity. I can't finish this on my own so here will remain without a satisfying conclusion. I'm the master of unfinished stories when it comes to spacedogs fics. First with my Beyond Midnight series and now with this one. Sorry.
> 
> -Stags


End file.
